ECCE eligibility cut-off
Deputy Currie criticised the ECCE age cut-off, which disproportionately excludes children born later in the year, and urged reform. The Tánaiste acknowledged the inequity and said the Government was advancing childcare investment while recognising ECCE’s importance.
The programme for Government committed to evaluating options to amend the ECCE eligibility criteria and it is clear why. It relies on a blunt cut-off date for children starting the ECCE scheme whereby they must be two years and eight months by 1 September. The inequity this causes is obvious from replies I have received to parliamentary questions. A total of 17% of children do not take up the second year of the free ECCE scheme. When that 17% is broken down by birth month, 3,257 were born in January, while just 171 were born in December.
Because of a matter of days or weeks, thousands of children are missing out on a full year of ECCE entitlement, the development benefits for the child and the financial benefits for the family. It is developmentally transformative, which is why Fine Gael increased it to two years. This is especially unjust when those children will start school at the same time as their December-born peers, but at a disadvantage.
In my mind, there is no need to delay on this. A review on ECCE was completed in October. We need a more flexible, inclusive system.
Comment on this
I thank Deputy Currie for raising this issue. I acknowledge her work as a vocal advocate for parents and providers and for getting this whole area of childcare right. I think that with all that went on in the world, perhaps it did not get as much attention this week as it merited. We took a very significant step forward this week with the capital investment for public facilities in relation to childcare and I thank the Minister, Deputy Foley, for that too.
The issue the Deputy has raised is an important issue because ECCE has been transformational. We all see it. We see it in our own children and we see it in our schools. Children are going into schools so much better prepared, educationally but also from a child development point of view. We do have the commitment in the programme for Government to amend eligibility criteria for ECCE. I take the point the Deputy makes in relation to the loss of time that a child might experience. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Foley, to provide a timeline for when we intend to progress that commitment.