Early Childhood Care and Education
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-24
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

There has been a huge amount of investment at Department of education level in terms of disadvantage, including in DEIS and so on. We are not blind to the fact that there are massive challenges in some communities with disadvantage. We are applying the resources to make sure we give every child the best possible chance in disadvantaged areas and across the education system.
In parallel, the early childcare scheme has been hugely funded. The funding that has gone into it in the past quarter of a century to bring it up to standard has been quite amazing. There are two pieces. One is the early childcare scheme to make sure we are giving two years - it is not long ago that it was just one year - and to make sure children are as prepared as possible to go into primary school.
We are constantly looking at where patterns and initiatives have developed in communities. The Deputy is right that this goes way back, beyond the 25 years since 2002. It was to capture a particular cohort of students. We continue to invest in the DEIS programme and to monitor it. This programme has been operating in the school for quite some time. We continue to monitor it and engage with the school and the outcomes. We have to be mindful of the investment going into the education system and the most important measure of that is to make sure children have positive outcomes when they go from primary school to post-primary school and on to adulthood. We have to constantly evaluate that to see whether we are targeting the right resources at the right communities, and to make the best possible choices for children into the future.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-24