Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 293: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the position regarding the operation of the free preschool year under the early childhood care and education scheme and the options open to parents under this scheme. [29772/09]

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.

The ECCE is being introduced from January 2010 as a free scheme to benefit children in the key developmental period prior to commencing school. To enable the maximum number of parents to avail of the free pre-school year a number of options for the delivery of the service is provided for under the scheme. A full or part-time day-care service will be required to provide a pre-school service for 2 hours 15 minutes per day, five days a week for 50 weeks (241 days) per year, in return for the capitation fee of €48.50 per week. A playschool sessional service will be required to provide a pre-school service for 3 hours per day, five days a week for 38 weeks (183 days) per year, in return for a capitation fee of €64.50 per week.

Where for good reason a sessional service is unable to operate over 5 days, consideration will be given to allowing it to participate in the scheme on the basis of providing the pre-school year for 3 hours 30 minutes per day for 4 days per week. In such cases, a service will be required to provide the pre-school year over 41 weeks (157 days). In addition, in certain circumstances full or part-time services can apply to provide the pre-school year for 3 hours 45 minutes for 3 days a week over 50 weeks. Full or part-time service may also choose to provide a sessional service over 38 weeks of a year (or 2 sessional services each day) while sessional services may choose to provide 2 hours 15 minutes per day over 50 weeks.

From September 2010, except in the case of children with special needs for whom not more than 3 days per week of pre-school provision may be appropriate, services participating in the scheme will be required to allocate a full pre-school place for each child enrolled. During January to August 2010, transitional arrangements will apply to accommodate parents who have entered into a shorter week arrangement with a pre-school service. During this period services may continue to accommodate children on a pro-rata basis and receive a capitation grant set by reference to the number of children attending each day rather than the total number of children in a week.

Children will be eligible to avail of the scheme where they are aged between 3 years 3 months and 4 years 6 months on 1 September each year. The scheme is being introduced in January 2010 and children aged between 3 years 7 months and 4 years 10 months on the 1st January 2010 will be eligible to avail of the free pre-school provision. To provide additional flexibility for parents, children will be accepted as qualifying for the scheme where they have not yet reached the age of 4 years 7 months during the month of September each year.

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 pre-school service providers who are notified to the Health Service Executive (HSE) or registered with the Irish Montessori Education Board (IMEB) and a number of other persons who 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. It is expected that the application process will be completed by the end of September 2010 and following this a list of all participating services will be available to parents from their local the City and County Childcare Committee.