Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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305. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of children that will benefit from the second ECCE year in 2017; the number that have benefitted from it in 2016; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23614/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Entry to the ECCE programme is based on a programme year that runs between September and August, so for the purpose of this PQ we propose to answer your query based on 2016 - 2017 and then 2017- 2018 programme years.

To date, approximately 14,000 children have registered for both 2015 - 2016 and 2016 - 2017 cycles and based on current registrations we would estimate that a similar number of children will register for both 2016 - 2017 and 2017-2018. A full year's registration won't be known until the Summer when the the programme closes for that cycle. The rate of uptake of the second year is dependent on a number of external factors including parental choice with regard to school starting age.