Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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256. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if his attention has been drawn to reports that some autistic children are effectively excluded from ECCE funding in cases in which they are in receipt of funds from the Department of Education for autism services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48754/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Many children with disabilities, including autism, take part in mainstream early learning and care services. Participation of children with disabilities in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) universal pre-school programme in mainstream early learning and care services is supported by the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM).

The key objective of AIM is to support early learning and care providers to deliver an inclusive preschool experience, ensuring that children with a disability can fully participate in the ECCE Programme, thereby reaping the benefits of quality preschool provision.

Aside from this mainstream provision, the Department of Education supports a limited range of other pre-school provision, including:

- Autism/ASD Early Intervention classes in mainstream and special schools

- The Home Tuition Grant Scheme

- Early Start

Generally children availing of ECCE are not eligible to access other pre-school provision funded by the Department of Education (DE) at the same time.

In certain circumstances, children availing of the Department of Education (DE) Home Tuition Grant Scheme may also access a pre-school service supported by the ECCE programme. In this instance the number of hours in ECCE is reduced by the number of hours spent in Home Tuition.

These measures are in place to avoid double funding for the same provision and having regard to the best interests of young children with additional needs who may not be best served by spending long periods of the day in specialist/EY provision.

If a service or parent requires further information and guidance on any of my Departments’ childcare funding programmes I would advise them to contact their local County Childcare Committee (CCC). Contact details for CCCs can be found at www.myccc.ie