Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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195. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the estimated cost of extending the ABC programme until August and December 2018 respectively. [40003/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The Area Based Childhood (ABC) Programme is a prevention and early intervention initiative led by my Department. The Programme commenced in 2013 and was designed as a time-bound co-funding arrangement for the period 2013 to 2016 in conjunction with The Atlantic Philanthropies.

A key purpose of the ABC Programme is to identify the learning across the programme and transfer this learning into existing and established services. In budget 2016, my Department secured additional funding to extend all of the existing ABC Programme to the end of December 2017.

Based on past costs and projections submitted by areas to the Programme managers for 2018, the total estimated cost of extending the entire ABC Programme from January 1^stto August 31st 2018, is approximately €6.5 million. Based on the extension requirements for 2017 and on costs for previous years in the existing programme, an indicative amount for extension of the ABC Programme for the entire calendar year 2018 would be in the region of €10 million.

My Department is working to ensure that we take full account of the learning from all the interventions across the 13 ABC sites, and the national evaluation, in order to inform the delivery of prevention and early intervention initiatives and to achieve our shared goal of improving the lives of children and families throughout Ireland.