As we approach the festive season we'd like to wish all our subscribers and friends a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

In our final e-newsletter of 2015, we highlight some of the recent developments in early years care and education research, policy and politics, and how we've been contributing to the issue.

We begin with a look at the item that will dominate our work over the weeks ahead - General Election 2016. We've already helped launch a detailed plan to end child and youth poverty, and in January we'll launch our campaign to make early years a key election issue. But we can't do it alone - our success will depend on supporters like you making young children a key topic of debate when interacting with election candidates. We want candidates calling at doors to be asked about early years - what are they going to do about quality, about affordability and about accessibility? We hope you join us in person, online and through social media in amplifying our election calls and making this debate happen.

Last month we made two submissions - one to the European Commission on its Country Specific Recommendation on Childcare, and another to the Department of Education and Skills, for consideration as part of the new National Skills Strategy. You can read all about these submissions in the articles below.

We also assess the latest Inter Departmental Group report, 'Supporting Access to the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme for Children with a Disability', and the subsequent announcement of supports for children with disabilities to attend pre-school.

And we review the findings of the latest report by the 'Growing Up In Ireland' research team, which examined the cognitive impact of childcare at 3 years old (just before entry into the pre-school year) on children's cognitive outcomes at 5 years old.


Finally, our offices will be closed from 1.00 pm Friday 18th December and will reopen on Monday, 4th January.