Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 166: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she received correspondence from a person (details supplied) in County Wicklow regarding the early childhood care and education scheme; if she will provide a copy of the response, or a detailed summary of the reply sent to this person; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25674/09]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware I have responsibility for the implementation of the new scheme to provide a free Pre-School year of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) which was announced recently by the Minister of Finance.

It is proposed to issue contracts setting out the requirements of the scheme and their associated terms and conditions in full detail next month. Services will be approved for entry to the scheme subject to them meeting and agreeing to the contractual requirements. It is open to any service approved for entry to the scheme to decide not to proceed at the point of receiving the contract. It is also open to any applicant to seek and pay for legal advice on the contract if they consider this to be necessary or appropriate. All participants will be required to provide a valid tax clearance certificate and keep appropriate records and accounts of their business. This is not expected to be any more onerous on a service than would normally be the case in meeting Revenue requirements, etc.

With regard to the requirement related to fee policies, it should be noted that where a service offers additional hours or services to parents, as clearly optional extras, it is free to charge parents for these where they choose to avail of them. This should not be confused with a service charging a "top up" fee and, in all cases, participating services must ensure that parents are given access to the free pre-school year irrespective of whether they choose to avail of such additional hours or services.

The provision of a valid tax clearance certificate is a standard requirement where public funding is being provided and data protection issues do not arise. With regard to the return to be made by participating services in January 2010, to establish the number of qualifying children enrolled, this will involve a simple input of data by each service similar to the return currently made by services participating in the community childcare subvention scheme (CCSS) which is also implemented by my Office. While there is no special competence required to make the return, I expect that the City and County Childcare Committees will assist services which require guidance on the return, as they did in the case of the CCSS.

The initial processing of application forms is being undertaken by the City and County Childcare Committees. I understand that they will log the applicants' details and seek confirmation from the relevant Pre-School Inspector that services can be considered to be in compliance with the Child Care (Pre-School Services) (No. 2) Regulations 2006 for the purposes of the scheme. All applications received by the Childcare Committees will be forwarded to the Childcare Directorate of my Office.

With regard to the particular circumstances of the service referred to by the Deputy, in that it is unable to open for more than 48 weeks of the year due to the conditions of its leasing arrangement, I would suggest that when the service in question is forwarding an application to operate on the basis of the 38 week model, it also forwards an application to operate on the basis of the 50 week mode, and outlines the particular difficulties it has in this regard.

Síolta is the national quality framework for early childhood education in Ireland and comprises a set of nationally devised and evidenced based principles, standards and components of quality in all dimensions of practice in early childhood education in Ireland. It was developed through extensive consultation with all stakeholders in the early childhood care and education (ECCE) sector in Ireland and is applicable for all settings where children aged birth to six years are present e.g. (full and part time day-care, sessional preschools and play groups, infant classes in primary schools and childminder settings). The Síolta Principles presents a highly endorsed vision for quality practice in early childhood care and education settings in Ireland and reflects our unique historical and cultural context. Síolta has been designed to promote quality improvement in ECCE settings and in addition to informal engagement with Síolta in everyday practice, ECCE services and practitioners may also register to participate in a more formal quality assurance programme which will require engagement with structured internal and external assessment processes, evidence collection and documentation. The Síolta Quality Assurance Programme (QAP) is supported by Síolta Co-ordinators. To date three Síolta Co-ordinators have been recruited and have undergone a rigorous induction process. They are currently supporting clusters of services in the three Dublin based Prevention and Early Intervention Programmes on the Síolta QAP. It is anticipated that the required additional coordinators will be recruited through the National Childcare Voluntary Organisations over the coming months. Each Síolta Coordinator will report, in the first instance to their individual employer, however the Early Years Education Policy Unit will provide induction and direct supervision on the implementation of the Síolta QAP.

In response to the specific queries contained in the letter, a service implementing the Early Years Foundation Management Programme or any other evidence based early childhood care and education programme (e.g. Montessori, High Scope, Steiner) will have no difficulty engaging with the Síolta Principles and Standards.

The National Nursery Education Board examination has been established as equivalent to a level 6 award on the National Framework for Qualifications (NFQ) in Ireland. As the Scheme stands the NFQ requirements relate to the pre-school leaders and not to other staff, although all staff are encouraged to avail of training, which will improve the quality of the service provided, and their own career prospects.

I launched a consultative process on developing the workforce in the ECCE sector on June 12th 2009. This consultation process seeks submissions on core questions relating to access and effective participation in education and training programmes. The consultation process is due to close on September 30th 2009 and it is anticipated that a Workforce Development Plan will be developed soon thereafter.