Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
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43. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her views on devoting extra funds through the ECCE scheme to preschools located in low income areas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15026/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Scheme provides early childhood care and education for children of pre-school age. From September 2016, children are eligible for the ECCE scheme if they are aged over 3 years and not older than 5 and a half years.

The State pays a capitation fee to participating play-schools and daycare services. In return, they provide a pre-school service free of charge to all children within the qualifying age range for a set number of hours over a set period of weeks. Variances in rates paid currently relate only to the qualification levels of relevant staff. There are currently no plans to change this.

However, as the Deputy will be aware, plans are currently in place to provide for a new national scheme of financial support for parents towards the cost of their childcare entitled the Affordable Childcare Scheme, which will replace the existing targeted childcare subsidisation schemes with a single, streamlined and more user-friendly scheme.

The new scheme will provide a system from which both universal and targeted subsidies can be provided towards the cost of childcare. In the case of targeted subsidies, these will be payable for children from 6 months of age up to 15 years of age. The level of subsidy will depend on the investment available and on a family’s income.

It is important to note that the new Affordable Childcare Scheme will “wraparound‟ ECCE for pre-school and school-age children.

With regard to the targeted subsidies the base income threshold of €22,700 in the new Scheme will guarantee that the maximum rate of subsidy is available to all families below the relative income poverty line.

As well as making childcare significantly more affordable for those on lower incomes, it will support labour market participation of parents and contribute to lifting children out of poverty.