Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 199: To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if children born after the 30 June, 2009, still qualify for the free pre-school year in September 2012. [11947/12]

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. About 66,000 children, that is approximately 95% of children in the year before school, are availing of the free pre-school provision at this time.

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 2008 and 30 June 2009 qualify for the free pre-school year in September 2012 and children born in July and August of 2009 will qualify for the programme in September 2013. There are no exceptions for children who are below the qualifying age.

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.