Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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158. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs his views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding free preschooling; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38852/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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At present, children qualify for one year's free pre-school under the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme when they are within the qualifying age range which is 3 years and 2 months to 4 years and 7 months in the September of the relevant year. This means, for example, that children born between 2 February 2011 and 30 June 2012 qualified for free pre-school from September 2015.

The recent Budget decisions, which introduced extended provision under the ECCE programme that allows children to access the free pre-school programme from the time they are 3 years of age until they start primary school, comes into effect from September 2016. This extended provision, when fully rolled out, will mean that children will have access to free education - either in pre-school or primary school - from the age of three.

When the extended ECCE programme is fully in place from 2017, the number of weeks of free pre-school a child will benefit from will depend on their birth date and on the age at which they start primary school. This number ranges from 38 weeks (for children born between April and August who start school at age 4) to 88 weeks (for children born between January and March who start school at age 5). This equates to an estimated 23 additional weeks on average.

Average number of pre-school weeks by month of birth and of enrolment in pre-school

Average no. of ECCE weeks

Under the extended ECCE programme, children cannot enrol for free pre-school if they will exceed 5 and a half at the end of the given programme year (i.e. June), but this is still a significant improvement over the current programme. Children born in the period September to December can enrol in the ECCE programme in two consecutive years and still benefit from 61 weeks of free pre-school.