Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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957. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the arrangements in place for ensuring that in accessing the free preschool education years, there is no discrimination based on date of birth in relation to a child's eligibility for funding at the start of the school year. [26917/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department does its best to ensure, in so far as is possible, the equitable treatment of all children and families who apply for childcare funding under the ECCE Programme. In order to ensure objectivity and fairness it is essential that clear rules exist for the scheme and that they are applied in a fair manner. The rules for all the Department’s childcare schemes are clearly published to ensure transparency and consistent application. An essential component of the scheme’s rules is an eligibility date to ensure that the scheme can be administered and budgeted for in an appropriate manner.

From September 2016, the ECCE Programme has been extended to make free pre-school available for 15 hours per week (i.e. 3 hours per day for 5 days), for 38 weeks per annum, to all children from the time they turn three, until they go to primary school (once the child is not older than 5 years and 6 months at the end of the pre-school year i.e. end June). There will be three opportunities each year - in September, January and April - for eligible children to enrol for the free pre-school provision. This will ensure that children have the opportunity to enrol as soon as possible after their third birthday.

The maximum number of free pre-school weeks to which a child is entitled will depend on their date of birth, and the age at which they start primary school. On average, children will benefit from 61 weeks, up from the previous provision of 38 weeks. Access to the average 61 weeks of ECCE can reduce the cost of childcare by €4,000 per child. The expansion of the ECCE programme will increase the number of children benefitting from 67,000 to 127,000 in a given programme year.

The eligibility for ECCE from age three using multiple entry points was a recommendation in Right from the Start, the Report of the Expert Advisory Group on the Early Years Strategy, published in 2013. The objective of this recommendation was to ensure that all children could access free pre-school from as near as possible after their third birthday until they started primary school. This would ensure that children and families had access to care and education in these formative years.