Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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It is estimated that the cost of extending the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme to the number of weeks specified by the Deputy, assuming 60% of children will attend higher rate services and 40% of children will attend standard rate services, would be as follows:

No of Weeks	Estimated Cost
40 Weeks	€17,520,704
41 weeks	€26,987,295
42 weeks	€35,041,408
43 weeks	€43,801,760
44 weeks	€52,562,112

The expansion of the ECCE programme into a second year, from September 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. From September 2016, the standard weekly capitation rate for each eligible child will be €64.50, and the higher weekly capitation rate will be €75.