Helen McEntee
Question:622. Deputy Helen McEntee asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the way the changes to the early childhood care and education scheme will impact on a person (details supplied) [37431/15]
View answerTuesday, 3 November 2015
Questions (622)
Written answers
The recent Budget announcements will come into effect from September 2016 when the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme will be expanded to allow children to access free pre-school from the time they are 3 years of age until they start primary school.
There are currently a significant number of vacancies among pre-school providers and some providers will expand to avail of the additional investment (for example by providing an extra class in the morning, or possibly expanding to make the programme available in the afternoon). The implementation date of September 2016 was chosen so that providers would have time to plan for extra free pre-school places. City and County Childcare Committees will be in a position to help parents identify other pre-school providers within their area with sufficient capacity to enrol additional children.
It will be up to individual pre-school providers to determine how many children they can take, and whether they will provide places to children who are currently attending rather than to new entrants. Each pre-school provider operates their own admission policies, and once these are within the terms of the ECCE programme, this Department has no function in relation to them.