Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 April 2016
33. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs where a play school-preschool is in a RAPID area and the majority of the children attending it are from a disadvantaged background, if there is a programme to provide access to extra funding for extra external education classes and workshops to be delivered at their school; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8613/16]
View answerMy Department provides funding to childcare facilities under a number of programmes, some of which are targeted at children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and others which make universal provision. The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme is the largest single programme administered by my Department - this provides free pre-school care and education to all children before they commence primary school. This programme has ensured that children from disadvantaged backgrounds who would previously have been unable to access pre-school services are in a position to avail of quality pre-school education.
In Budget 2016, the Government announced additional annual funding of €85 million for childcare - this included a major expansion of the ECCE programme to a total of €233 million in 2016, as well as funding for 8,000 extra places under the Community Childcare Subvention programme to help low income and disadvantaged families access quality childcare.
The expansion of the ECCE scheme from September of this year will mean that children can enrol in the programme at three entry points from the time they turn three until they make the transition to primary school. This will increase the current 38 weeks of free preschool provision by an average of 23 weeks (total of 61 weeks on average), and up to 88 weeks, depending on the child's date of birth and the age at which he or she subsequently starts primary school. This extension of free pre-school will increase the number of children benefiting from free pre-school from the current 67,000 per annum to 127,000 in a given programme year.
In addition to the ECCE programme, the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme mentioned above, and the Training and Employment Childcare (TEC) programmes, are implemented by my Department and focus on children from low-income families. In excess of €78 million is provided for these programmes, which support the provision of highly subvented, part-time or full-time, childcare and education. In February 2016, I announced the expansion of the CCS programme to private providers to enable all eligible children/parents to access this programme even if they lived in an area with no community service. CCS funding is targeted to ensure that the parents with the greatest need obtain the greatest level of financial support. In addition to the measures funded by DCYA, the Department of Education and Skills funds 40 Early Start centres in DEIS schools in areas of socio-economic disadvantage, which offer teacher-led pre-school education to participants for 2.5 hours per day.
The DCYA cannot currently provide funding to provide additional educational classes on top of the above.
