Ms Mary Cregg:

Tusla has the statutory role in respect of attendance. I will defer to Mr. Ward perhaps and let him elaborate on that aspect. The educational welfare officers, however, are in the field. In cases where reduced timetables are put in place, if we look at what happens in other jurisdictions, we can see that the attendance officers are involved and informed when a reduced timetable is put in place. That is something we are looking at and we work very closely with Tusla's educational welfare service on that issue. I will clarify what processes are involved when I spoke about that topic earlier. This involves the resources that have been deployed to the school being used appropriately.

To give an example, in a DEIS school, questions about the process would include asking if the home school community liaison officer has been involved, if the school completion programme has been involved, and if every effort has been made to ensure that the child can stay on in the school before a reduced timetable is put in place. That is where I am coming from on that issue. On the timeline that Deputy Jan O'Sullivan asked about for the guidelines, a process of consultation will need to take place with stakeholders, but we are aiming at actioning this with our colleagues in Tusla as soon as possible with a view to addressing it as soon as we can.