Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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41. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the steps being taken to ensure that early childhood care and education providers are adequately resourced and supported to fully include children with additional needs; if additional funding, staff training, and inclusion supports are being provided to meet the commitments set out in the Joint Oireachtas Committee's 2024 report; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50192/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) was introduced in 2016 to ensure that children with additional needs or a disability could access and meaningfully participate in the Early Childhood Care and Education or ECCE programme. Since its introduction, AIM has had a major impact on the lives of children with disabilities and the overall quality of early learning and care. To date, over 35,000 children have received more than 80,000 targeted supports across over 4,800 early learning and care services nationwide.

The 2025 budget allocation for the AIM is €80.861m which was an increase of 41% from the previous 2024 budget. This funding provides a suite of universal and targeted supports across 7 levels. Universal supports are designed to create a more inclusive culture in early learning and care settings, through training courses and qualifications for staff. Where universal supports are not enough to meet the needs of an individual child, targeted supports are available including equipment, therapeutic supports and the facilitation of a lower ratio of children to staff in pre-school rooms or funding for an extra staff member as a shared resource, where a child with additional needs is present.

Access to AIM is based on the needs of the individual child, in the context of the pre-school setting, and does not require a diagnosis.

In line with a commitment in First 5: A Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families 2019-2028, an independent evaluation of AIM was undertaken in order to inform an extension of AIM beyond the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme as well as any potential enhancements to the model.

AIM has now expanded beyond time spent in the ECCE programme, allowing children to access AIM targeted supports for an additional 3 hours a day during the ECCE term and 6 hours outside of the ECCE term.

It is intended that over time, all children with disabilities registered in early learning and childcare services will have access to supports under AIM. To this end, a tailored model is under design which would enable the extension of AIM to children under three. It is also intended to give consideration at a later date to an extension of AIM for children attending school-age childcare. Both extensions will require a redesign of AIM to ensure that it meets the different needs of children in these two separate cohorts and will also require funding through the annual Budget process.

All providers are strongly encouraged to be inclusive and to welcome all children who apply for places in their service. Services should ensure equal access for all children and should not undertake any action that could adversely affect the ability of any child to access and meaningfully participate in the ECCE programme. Parents struggling to secure a place should contact their local City or County Childcare Committee for advice and support.

The Department has committed to review the guidance on inclusion policies to ensure there is adequate support and recognition for priority target groups; provide guidance on admissions policies, and explore the possible introduction of regulatory requirements for ELC and SAC services to have an inclusive admissions policy. The Department will continue to support and encourage services to ensure their services are open and inclusive.