Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If they provide the confirmation, then they are eligible to attend the third school.

As already stated, I acknowledge the enormous body of work that this committee has done to try to push forward with the summer programme, with the aim of maximising the uptake. The Government has invested €40 million in order to be able to facilitate a maximum uptake of the programme. We are seeing success this year and I appreciate the committee's input into that success. We are seeing a 50% increase in special schools involving themselves in the summer programme and a 20% increase overall in terms of the number of schools taking part. That is significant. In 2019, we had 13,000 young people participating in the programme. Last year, had 42,000 participants and we are already seeing an increase on that this year.

This year, in terms of the special schools, we have made a very concerted effort. A national co-ordinator for the special schools has been employed and within the schools there is both a programme manager and a school organiser. The aim there is to lift the burden of organisation from any one individual within a school.

The Deputy make reference to thinking outside the box, and I appreciate everyone having an input into determining how we can do things better. This year we did think outside the box. We set up a portal for those who might have an interest in working on the summer programme and more than 1,500 people registered on that portal. That is separate from those who did not have to register at all because their own schools were doing it. Those 1,500 who registered included student teachers, therapists, SNAs, people coming from a care background and so on. The idea was that if there was a school that was unable to run the summer programme, we would have staff available and there might be an opportunity for a private group or provider to set up a programme for the summer. A considerable body of work has been done on that and Mr. Hanlon, in particular, has engaged on it.

We have been very keen to maximise the number of young people that have access to the summer programme. We have introduced a number of innovations that build on those introduced last year, including provision for online payment. The latter means that staff will be paid more quickly. We have built on all of the initiatives that are required and are confident that we will see growth in the summer programme again this year. I accept what Deputy Buckley said and agree that we need to get to a point where we have 100% availability to all students. We are working towards that.