Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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681. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the position regarding the second free preschool year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18736/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Early Childhood Care and Education programme was introduced in January 2010 and provides a free preschool year to all eligible children before commencing primary school. Approximately 68,000 children availed of the provision in the 2012/2013 academic year, and similar numbers are expected to avail of it during the current academic year.

Despite the challenging budgetary situation, I have succeeded in maintaining the preschool year as a universal and free programme, ensuring that a significant number of children can avail of quality preschool services who would not otherwise be in a position to do so.

There is an increasing body of Irish and International evidence which quantify the benefits of early years interventions in terms of improving children’s outcomes and in delivering significant economic and societal return to the state. In this context I believe the introduction of a second year would benefit children’s educational and developmental outcomes. A second free preschool year would represent €2,500 to €3,000 worth of free child care to parents and would be likely to generate 4,000-5,000 new jobs, albeit mostly part-time.

However, the introduction of a second preschool year would require considerable additional funding, broadly in line with the cost of the current one-year provision, which is €175 million per annum. This additional funding is not presently available due to the financial constraints under which the Government is operating. In addition, all of the available evidence indicates that the quality of the preschool provision is key to good outcomes for children. My Pre-School Quality Agenda, which involves a range of actions in key areas aimed at improving quality within early years services and enhancing the regulatory regime, is a key building block for any further extension of universal child care provision.

Future developments relating to early years care and education are being considered as part of the preparation of the new National Early Years Strategy. The report of the Expert Advisory Group which I appointed to advise on recommendations for inclusion in the Strategy, ‘Right from the Start’, sets out a wide range of recommendations for consideration and will contribute substantially to the final draft of the Early Years Strategy. One of the recommendations in the Report for consideration in the preparation of the Strategy is to extend the free preschool provision, but only after achieving higher quality standards, more investment in training and mentoring, and professionalization of the Early Years workforce.