Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 160: To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she has been furnished with an estimate of the numbers of children that miss out on early childhood care and education scheme payment due to their birth date falling in July or August and they commence school having reached four years; her views on the extra cost involved if she were to extend the date of the scheme to the end of August; if same will be worthwhile to cover this cost; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28906/11]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme was introduced in January 2010 and provides a free pre-school year to all eligible children in the year before commencing primary school. Almost every pre-school service in the State is participating in the ECCE programme, ensuring that it is available to children in all areas, and 63,000 children, or 94% of the eligible age cohort, availed of the free pre-school year in 2010/2011.

Children qualify for the free pre-school year where they are aged more than 3 years 2 months and less than 4 years 7 months at 1 September in the relevant year. This means, for example, that children born between 2 February 2007 and 30 June 2008 qualify for the free pre-school year in September 2011 and children born in July and August of 2008 will qualify for the programme in September 2012. It is estimated that in the region of 3,500 children commence primary school when they are aged less than 4 years and 2 months, the majority of whom will have attended pre-school. The estimated cost of extending the programme to include this cohort of children would be approximately €9 million.

The ECCE programme will continue to be evaluated and developed as resources permit. In this context, I have asked officials in my department to examine options for the further development of the programme and the matter of age will be looked at as part of this.