297. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the full-year cost of extending the early childhood care and education programme by 30 minutes, and one hour per day. [43759/24]

The Deputy has requested the full year cost of extending the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme by 30 minutes per day and 1 hour per day.

The ECCE Programme is currently provided for 3 hours per day across 38 weeks per year. In calculating the cost of these changes the total budget allocation for the ECCE programme for 2025 (€269.25 million) was used. The proportional increase in hours was applied to this allocation to determine the additional cost of the changes.

The results are given in the below table:

It is important to note that these estimates are based on a static system and do not account for any potential changes in behaviour that would result from these changes. These estimates also assume that all services providing ECCE would have the capacity for the proposed increase.