Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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857. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the estimated cost of increasing the number of available hours under the ECCE scheme each week by 3, 5, 10 and 15 hours respectively; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7109/20]

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

The Early Childhood Care and Education programme runs for 38 weeks each programme year. The standard capitation rate paid to providers is €69 per child, per week. The higher capitation rate paid to services is €80.25 per child, per week. The programme currently provides 15 hours of free childcare per week.

The following table displays the full year financial impact of extending the hours available per week as per the question.

As AIM funding is intrinsically linked to ECCE capitations any increase in rates or durations for the ECCE programme has an impact on associated AIM costs.

AIM Levels 1 & 7 are awarded on a weekly basis, €2 per child per week and 195 euros per week respectively (the underlying basis for AIM Level 7 figure is the cost of ECCE capitation for 3 children). If an increase in hours of ECCE duration was required, there might be a case to increase AIM Level 1 & 7 capitations.

In 2020 €26m was allocated for AIM level 7 and €5.4m for AIM level 1. The following table captures the impacts of the outlined increases would have, based on a pro-rating of weekly to hourly costs, to the estimated allocation for AIM Levels 1 & 7 support costs in 2020.