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.

Sentiment score: 0.05