Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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113. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the full year cost in 2017 of increasing the capitation grant to the early childhood care and education scheme to €67.50 for the basic rate and to €78.50 for the higher rate. [2601/16]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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At present, children qualify for 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.

The extension to the ECCE programme which was announced in Budget 2016 will allow children to access the free pre-school programme from the time they are 3 years of age until they start primary school. This measure will come into effect from September 2016. The 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.

The start up date for the introduction of this new measure was decided so as to allow pre-school providers an adequate timeframe to make any necessary infrastructural or service changes and to put in place extra staff resources to accommodate the additional numbers benefiting from the programme, which is estimated to increase from 67,000 to 127,000 in a given programme year.

The extension to this programme will cost an additional €47m in 2016. The full year additional costs of this extended programme will be in the region of €114m. These costs already include a restoration of capitation fees to pre-2012 levels with effect from September 2016 (i.e. €64.50 standard capitation fee and €75 higher capitation fee per child per week).

Increasing the basic and higher capitation fees further to €67.50 and €78.50 per child per week respectively is estimated to cost an additional €14m in 2017. These estimates assume 33% of children are attending higher capitation services (as is currently the case).