Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 118: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the position with respect to the early childhood care and education scheme; the criteria for offering grant assistance; the way this is applied for; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26460/09]

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 in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), which will be implemented from January 2010.

The scheme will allow qualifying children to avail of a free pre-school place in the year before they commence primary school. The scheme is open to all private and voluntary pre-school services which are notified to the Health Service Executive (HSE) or registered with the Irish Montessori Educational Board (IMEB). Sessional playschools will, normally, participate in the scheme by providing the pre-school year for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week over 38 weeks while full or part-time daycare services will, normally, participate by providing the pre-school year for 2 hours, 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week over 50 weeks.

An annual capitation fee of over €2,400 will be paid to participating services in return for the provision of a free pre-school year to each child. Services will be paid in advance at the start of each term. It is a condition of the scheme that the pre-school year is provided free of charge to parents in return for the capitation fee. However, services may charge for additional services, including additional hours, dance classes, etc or snacks, provided these are offered to parents on an optional basis and provided children not availing of an additional service continue to receive appropriate pre-school provision.

As part of the preparations for introducing the new scheme, the Childcare Directorate of my Office recently wrote to almost 5,000 private and voluntary pre-school service providers in the State, inviting them to participate. These included the pre-school service providers who are notified to the HSE or registered with the IMEB and also a number of other persons who have expressed an interest in establishing a pre-school service and participating in the scheme. Application forms and other relevant information regarding the scheme were included in this correspondence and applicants are now returning forms to their local City or County Childcare Committees. The closing date for response is 10 July 2009. Details of the services applying for entry to the scheme are then forwarded to the Childcare Directorate in my Office, which will issue contracts setting out the requirements of the scheme and their associated terms and conditions. Services will be approved entry to the scheme subject to them meeting and agreeing contractual arrangements.

It is expected that the application process will be completed by the end of September 2009 and I understand that a list of participating services in each area will then be made available to each City and County Childcare Committee and parents of qualifying children will be able to contact their local Committee from that point to obtain details of local services entering the scheme. Parents will then be in a position to enrol their children in participating services. In many cases, parents will already have enrolled their children in a service from September 2009, and will pay fees until January 2010 when the scheme will come into effect.