Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 144: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will address the issues raised in correspondence from a person (details supplied) in County Cork. [41115/09]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

As the Deputy will be aware, I have responsibility for the implementation of the free Pre-School Year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme which is being introduced in January 2010.

Under the ECCE scheme, participating services will be paid a standard annual capitation fee of €2,450 in return for the provision of the free pre-school year to each child. The payment will be made, in advance, at the beginning of each term. A higher capitation rate of €2,850 per annum will be available to sessional playschool services in which all child care workers have qualification levels above the minimum requirements for the scheme. To qualify for the higher capitation rate all Pre-School leaders in the service must hold a major award in early childhood care and education or equivalent (title of courses may vary) at a minimum Level 7 on the National Framework of Qualifications and have 3 years experience working in the sector, and all assistants must hold a relevant FETAC Level 5 qualification or its equivalent.

Sessional playschools participating in the scheme are expected to provide the pre-school year over 183 days in a full year, as is the case for primary schools. This will require them to be open over 38 weeks per annum. It is considered that the capitation rates are reasonable and will accommodate the greater majority of services. This is borne out by the fact that 90% of pre-school services operating in the State have applied for entry to the scheme. Services participating in the scheme should ensure that the capitation fee is sufficient to cover their full operational costs including the statutory entitlements of staff to paid leave. The scheme represents an investment of almost €170 million annually in pre-school services and in light of the current economic situation there are no proposals to increase this provision.

The scheme will normally be required to be provided over five days each week. This is considered the most appropriate framework to ensure that children receive an appropriate level of early learning involving appropriate programme based activities in the critical developmental year before they commence primary school. To facilitate services which currently accommodate a greater number of children than they have places for (i.e. on a pro-rata basis), services may participate in the ECCE scheme during January to September 2010 on this basis, in which case they will be paid in respect of the number of children attending per day rather than the total number of children per week. For the reasons stated above, this will not be continued beyond September 2010.

With regard to the pre-school voucher system introduced in the United Kingdom in the 1990s, I understand that this has been abandoned in favour of a scheme broadly similar to the ECCE scheme. Voucher systems generally result in many services charging additional "top up" fees to parents who can afford to pay. Over time, parents increasingly lose the benefit of the funding provided and, in addition, a two-tier pre-school system develops, which is contrary to the objective of equal access for all children to pre-school education. It is a fundamental principle of the ECCE scheme that it will be provided free of charge to parents. Participating services can charge parents for additional services where these are clearly optional to parents and appropriate programme based activities continue to be provided to children not availing of such services during the pre-school year hours.