Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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234. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the details of the targeted funding which will be allocated to early years services in disadvantaged areas which was announced as part of Budget 2024. [45674/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am pleased to have secured an allocation of €4.5m to commence the first phase of roll-out of the Equal Participation Model from September 2024

Work is in progress to finalise the model which will aim to help children and their families who may be experiencing disadvantage to access early learning and childcare settings, through a range of supports, universal and targeted.

To support the reduction of administration for services, target services will be identified using existing data including, but not exclusively, the Pobal HP deprivation index within an evidence based identification process. There will be no application process.

The design of EPM is being finalised based on extensive feedback and consultations with educators, parents, providers and representative organisations. The detail will be published in early 2024. It will seek to reflect the concerns around the additional complexity and staffing requirements of supporting the inclusion of children who may be experiencing disadvantage.

Implementation will be phased with ongoing engagement with key stakeholders on later phases being a key element of the implementation approach.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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235. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will outline details of plans by his Department to broaden AIM's programme funding beyond the ECCE timetable. [45675/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The proportion of services accessing AIM has increased substantially since its establishment in 2016. Application volumes for all AIM funding were at their highest level by September 2023 than in September of previous years.

After 7 years in operation, AIM has had a major impact on the lives of children and on the quality of preschool provision. More than 27,000 children have received over 60,000 targeted supports in over 4,000 services nationally since the programme’s introduction in 2016, and the proportion of services that have a child with additional needs attending has increased by almost half.

First 5: A whole-of-Government strategy committed to extending AIM. This extension was to be informed by an end-of-year-3 evaluation, due to be published later this year. Participants in that evaluation - parents, educators and providers – unanimously supported an extension of targeted AIM supports to hours outside the ECCE programme.

As a first step, from September 2024, there will be an expansion of targeted AIM supports to children participating in ECCE beyond the programme hours, in term and out of term from next September.

The specific rules and approaches to this extension are currently being developed. Further details on how AIM will operate outside of the ECCE programme will be made available as the detailed design advances.