642. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of the 7,922 children enrolled in the access inclusion model who are also enrolled in the national childcare scheme. [25168/24]

The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is a programme of supports designed to ensure that children with disabilities can access the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme. Its goal is to empower Early Learning and Care (ELC) providers to deliver an inclusive pre-school experience, ensuring that every eligible child can meaningfully participate in the ECCE Programme and reap the benefits of quality early years care and education in any mainstream ELC service. AIM resources are allocated based on a child’s individual needs.

The AIM End-of-Year-Three evaluation was published in January 2024. The findings have informed an expansion of targeted AIM supports to children beyond time spent in the ECCE programme, in term and out of term from September 2024. The intent of the additional hours funding is to support ECCE-enrolled children with additional needs or a disability to access early learning and care outside of the ECCE programme if they wish to do so. It is intended that over time, all children with additional needs registered in ELC services will have access to supports under AIM. To this end, officials in this Department will also be considering enhancements to, and/or expansion of AIM to 0-3 year olds and then considering further extension to school aged childcare.

The number of children enrolled on the AIM programme as of 5 June, is 8,518, of which 2,651 are children also registered for NCS. In order to access AIM additional hours a child must have a National Childcare Scheme (NCS) claim in place.

The table below details the number of children in receipt of AIM supports who are also currently availing of NCS by AIM level and in total.

Please note that as there is an overlap between AIM levels, the number of children on each level does not add up to the total of unique children on the AIM programme.