Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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369. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the projected cost of expanding the preparing for life programme model to all area based childhood areas. [12064/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The ABC programme is a joint prevention and early intervention initiative led by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Atlantic Philanthropies. It is a time-bound, co-funding arrangement in the amount of €29.7m from 2013 to 2017. The aim of the ABC Programme is to test and evaluate prevention and early intervention approaches to improve outcomes for children, and families living in poverty in 13 areas of disadvantage. The focus of the work under the ABC Programme covers in the main: Child Health & Development; Children’s Learning; Parenting; and Integrated Service Delivery.

The ABC programme was preceded by the Prevention and Early Intervention Programme (PEIP) (2007-2013) in which three sites participated: youngballymun, The Childhood Development Initiative Tallaght and The Preparing for Life Programme, Darndale. €50m has been provided to these three sites over the duration of both the PEIP and ABC programmes.

The total funding for The Preparing for Life Programme under the ABC Programme is €3.739m, which if annualised would amount to approximately €.934m per annum. If this programme was to be expanded across the other 12 sites, assuming similar design and levels of need, it is anticipated that the full costs would be in the region of €11.2m. The programme has a range of discrete elements.

I welcome the very positive results coming from the evaluation of the Preparing for Life Programme relating to the home visiting and parenting programme elements, and am aware that a cost study is being carried out at present.

These evaluation findings and the associated costs will be key in informing the consideration of mainstreaming the learning from the Preparing for Life Programme along with the existing and emerging evaluation findings across the range of ABC programme sites.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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370. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs for a full breakdown of the cost of funding in area based childhood areas at present and an estimated cost for 2017. [12065/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The ABC programme is a joint prevention and early intervention initiative led by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Atlantic Philanthropies. It is a time-bound, co-funding arrangement in the amount of €29.7m from 2013 to 2017. The aim of the ABC Programme is to test and evaluate prevention and early intervention approaches to improve outcomes for children, and families living in poverty in 13 areas of disadvantage. The focus of the work under the ABC Programme covers in the main: Child Health & Development; Children’s Learning; Parenting; and Integrated Service Delivery.

The ABC programme was preceded by the Prevention and Early Intervention Programme (PEIP) (2007-2013) in which three sites participated: youngballymun, The Childhood Development Initiative Tallaght and The Preparing for Life Programme, Darndale. €50m has been provided to these three sites over the duration of both the PEIP and ABC programmes. In order to allow for a comprehensive examination of how best to mainstream the learning from the ABC sites, the DCYA is committed to aligning all 13 ABC programme grant recipients and ensuring that effective services provided in each can be supported until mid-2017. In this regard, DCYA have committed to the provision of an additional €400,000 to each of the 3 former PEIP sites, subject to the submission of proposals to the DCYA and The Atlantic Philanthropies at the end of May for consideration.

This additional funding will bring the total funding being provided directly to sites over the duration of the programme to €24.7m. In addition to this, funding is provided to both Pobal and the Centre for Effective Services as programme managers of the ABC programme. This funding amounts to €2.96m for the Centre for Effective Services for the implementation supports and the evaluation of the programme and €1.28m for Pobal for the management and governance of the programme.

I have asked my officials to seek the most up to date information from Pobal as follows:

- Profiled spend in 2016 based on the current run rate

- Profiled spend for 2017 (when the programme is due to end)

I anticipate that these costings will be finalised soon and I will revert to the Deputy with a full and annualised costing of the programme for 2017. The full budget allocation per site is provided in the following table.