Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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273. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the estimated cost of increasing the number of hours available under the ECCE scheme each week by five, ten, 15 and 20 hours, respectively. [43952/19]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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€297m has been allocated for the Early Childhood Care and Education programme in 2020.

There are currently a maximum of 15 hours per week available on the ECCE scheme. The following table outlines the annual cost of increasing the number of hours available per week in 2020 by the specified hourly increments:

Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) funding is linked to ECCE capitation. Subsequently, any increase in durations for the ECCE programme will also have an impact on AIM expenditure.

Initial estimates indicate that, in 2020, AIM level 7 will cost circa €26m and AIM level 1 will cost circa €5.4m. The two levels combined are therefore forecast to cost €31.4m.

The table below captures the projected impact of the outlined ECCE hour increases on the allocation for AIM Levels 1 & 7 in 2020.

Please note, that for the purposes of this PQ, the estimates have been prepared by extrapolating simply  from current hourly costs/rates. Additional hours in ECCE or AIM might result in some critical mass efficiencies and hence reduced costs, or indeed, extra costs such as for the provision of meals. A more detailed costing exercise would be required to prepare further estimates for any future policy development.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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274. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the estimated cost of increasing the number of weeks available under the ECCE scheme by one, two, three, four, five, six and seven weeks. [43953/19]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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€297m has been allocated to the Early Childhood Care and Education programme in 2020.

ECCE is currently available for 38 weeks throughout the year. The following table outlines the cost of expanding the scheme as per the specified weekly increments:  

The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is offered to children with disabilities who wish to participate in ECCE. AIM. Subsequently, any increase in duration of the ECCE programme will also have an impact on AIM expenditure.

Initial estimates indicate that, in 2020, AIM level 7 will cost circa €26m and AIM level 1 will cost circa €5.4m. The two levels combined are therefore forecast to cost €31.4m. The following table captures the projected impact of the outlined ECCE increases on the allocation for AIM Levels 1 & 7 in 2020.