Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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253. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to address concerns that there is insufficient capacity in the early education sector to accommodate the roll-out of the second preschool year under the early childhood care and education scheme; the capacity reviews which have been undertaken by his Department or Pobal to access the level of capacity within the sector; and the detail of the findings of such reviews. [7669/16]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The expansion of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme on foot of the allocation of additional funding in Budget 2016 will see the number of children benefitting from the Programme rise from around 67,000 to around 127,000 in a given programme year. For the 2016/17 programme year, it is estimated that 89,500 children will be eligible to enrol in the Programme from September 2016, an additional 22,000 from January 2017 and a further 15,500 from April 2017.

The budgetary announcement in Oct 2015 gave services that wished to expand 11 months notice to plan for the first additional entrants and 18 months to plan for the peak demand in April 2017. My Department made detailed information available to the City and County Childcare Committees at the beginning of this year indicating the number of children, by every electoral division across the country, who would be eligible for an ECCE place in Sept 2016, January 2017 and April 2017. My Department continues to work closely with the City and County Childcare Committees to match this data against their reported capacity in the sector to meet the increase in demand. This exercise is almost complete with the City and County Childcare Committees currently producing a national summary and more local data for me on capacity. Where any capacity issues are found, I will be asking the relevant City/County Childcare Committee to work intensively with my Department to resolve the issue.

I have launched several initiatives to support capacity building for the ECCE programme, including the Learner Fund 4 which supports staff to upskill and services to have qualified pre-school leaders in their setting. I have also reformed the rules applying to payment of "Higher Capitation". The amended rules will allow Higher Capitation to be paid per room, rather than the traditional rule that all pre-school rooms must be led by a graduate to be eligible. This will allow services who have been in receipt of Higher Capitation to retain this payment for some of their rooms, even if they do not have a graduate for their additional rooms.

I have ensured support for capacity building through the Early Years Capital Programme 2016, under which capital funding of €4 million is being made available for pre-school services, including not-for-profit community childcare services, that are making alterations to their services to accommodate the increased numbers resulting from the expansion of the ECCE programme. The maximum grant available under this programme is €10,000. The closing date for applications was 8 April 2016.

In addition, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has, following consultation with officials in my Department, written to all Local Authorities requesting that they assist with the planning process for childcare facilities in order to facilitate the expansion of required capacity.