Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 43: To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if a decision has been made on whether to facilitate children that miss out on the 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; if she will extend the date of the scheme to the end of August; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40358/11]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The free Pre-School Year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme was introduced in January 2010 with the objective of providing a free pre-school year to all eligible children.

The age range for eligibility under the programme spans 17 months with children qualifying for the free pre-school year where they are aged more than 3 years 2 months and less than 4 years 7 months on 1 September in the relevant year. This means, for example, that children born between 2 February 2007 and 30 June 2008 were eligible for the free pre-school year in September 2011 and children born in July and August 2008 will be eligible in September 2012 .

The objective of the ECCE programme is to make early learning in a formal setting available to eligible children in the year before they commence primary school. To achieve this, services participating in the pre-school year are expected to provide age-appropriate activities and programmes to children within a particular age cohort. For this reason, it is appropriate to set minimum and maximum limits to the age range within which children will qualify.

A number of parents have asked for the lower age range to be reduced on the grounds that they wish to send their children to school when they are 4 years and 2 months of age or less. The issue was referred by some of these parents to the Office of the Ombudsman for Children. That Office found no reason to remove or amend the lower age range, accepting it as reasonable having regard to the various factors which apply.