Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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670. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide a breakdown of the cost of extending the AIM programme supports to all children with a disability aged 0-3 in childcare for six hours a day, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43289/24]

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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671. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide a breakdown of the cost of extending the AIM programme supports to all children with a disability aged 0-3 in childcare for eight hours a day, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43290/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 670 and 671 together.

The Access and Inclusion model is designed to support children in ECCE. From September 2024 it has also been expanded to support ECCE aged children in early learning and childcare outside of AIM.

The goal of the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is to empower Early Learning and Care (ELC) providers to deliver an inclusive preschool experience, ensuring that every ECCE-eligible child can meaningfully participate in, and reap the benefits of high-quality early learning and care.

The minimum eligibility age of 2 years and 8 months for the ECCE programme (and by extension AIM) was chosen based on national experience and a review of international practice. It also had regard to the regulatory environment for Early Years education and care in this country and issues such as child development readiness and adult-child ratios.

This Department ultimately intends to extend AIM to younger children. However, this extension will require a redesign of AIM to ensure that it meets the different needs of pre-ECCE children, and also funding through the annual budget process to meet the needs of younger children. It will not be possible to estimate the cost of extending AIM to the 0-3 age group until the redesign is complete. Work in this regard is ongoing.

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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672. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide an update on the work of his Department to put ECCE on a statutory footing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43291/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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First 5 - A Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families 2019-2028 commits to "undertaking a review of the ECCE programme and, subject to findings, consider the need to make changes. Over the lifetime of the strategy, introduce a universal legal entitlement to preschool."

The first state of this commitment has been met. An independent review of the ECCE Programme has recently been completed by Stranmillis University. Officials in my Department are currently considering the findings of this review.

The Department is developing a policy paper informed by those findings, which will act as a precursor for putting ECCE on a statutory footing.