Mr. Noel Kelly:

I want to respond to a number of the issues raised by the members as well as some of the comments from other presenters. First, schools are aware that they have an obligation to report suspensions. It is very clear in the legislation and it is also very clear in the guidelines. As recently as 2015, those guidelines were issued to all schools because they were requested to develop and submit a statement of strategy on attendance. As of today, only 86% of schools have submitted those statements, despite my Department having two staff working full-time reminding people about that. I will state to Senator Gallagher that while we do not want to point the finger at schools, and the vast majority of schools do try their absolute best to comply, a small percentage do not.

The reporting of suspensions happens at the end of the school year. If, therefore, we are to do anything about intervening, that is not going to work. To follow up on Ms Cregg's point, what we are proposing to do is based on the fact that, at the moment, if a school intends to expel a student, it has to submit information on such an intention to Tusla before doing that. That information has to come into us and be logged in our office before our educational welfare officers are able to intervene. We have a high success rate. Last year, more than 300 intentions to expel resulted in only 180 expulsions. We managed to stop about 120 of those intended expulsions by working with the school and the families. We are proposing something similar in regard to reduced timetables. That is despite the fact that I have clearly stated that a reduced timetable is a suspension. We are going to be developing a reporting form that schools will have to submit to us if there is an intention to put a student on a reduced timetable. Whether that is going to flush out all of this is another question.

It is clear from listening to all of the evidence, both the previous day and today, that much of what is happening is underground. It is not being recorded, not being reported and not being written down. We will also take seriously our responsibility to inform all schools and parents. I will be proposing that in the first term next year, we get an information leaflet out to all parents regarding this issue. We are also redeveloping our website. It will have a frequently asked questions, FAQ, section where parents can log in and see their rights in respect of reduced timetables. I have also just finished doing some work with the Children's Rights Alliance. It is updating its information sheets for parents and students and they will also be available. There will, therefore, be multiple sources available for parents.

On reporting mechanisms, I suggested that a referral form be put in place rather than the end of year report. Schools will have access to that and they will be obliged to submit that form to us.