John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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192. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the cost of providing a third free early childhood care year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32363/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The costs of the measures described are heavily dependent on uptake - it is estimated that' at present' 10% of children under three are in formal childcare. To cater for an expansion of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme would require significant capital investment to increase the capacity of the childcare sector. In addition' this is likely to require an enormous volume of additional qualified staff.

Currently the ECCE Programme is available for children from the age of three until they attend primary school' provided they are no older than five years and six months by the end of the pre-school year' (ie. end of June). As all children must be in primary school by the age of six it would be impractical to extend the ECCE Programme beyond the current cut off point of five years and six months. Therefore' if ECCE were to be provided for a third year the programme would need to be extended to children from the age of two. The cost of childcare for children aged between one year of age' and two years of age is considerably higher than for children participating in ECCE' as a significantly higher ratio of staff to children is required (11:1 for current ECCE-age children' 5:1 for children between the ages of one and two-and-a-half in a sessional pre-school service).

Given the complexities described above it is not possible to provide an accurate estimate of cost. The Department is currently in the process of procuring an independent review of the cost of care' following which the data required to enable an answer to this question may be available.