Ms Kate Duggan:

Often people do not associate the educational support service with Tusla in terms of the wider work we do around child protection and welfare but our educational support service is a pivotal service within the agency from the perspective of early intervention and responses to that service. The most recent published figures for 2023 show that one in four children in primary school is absent for more than 20 days, while over one in five, or 20%, of children in post-primary school is absent for over 20 days. The significant increase in demand for services in our educational welfare service is an area on which we are working very closely with colleagues in the Department and getting support from them. I know the Minister is launching, with our support and that of colleagues, a much wider programme on a new campaign for school attendance. That is a pivotal part.

The second part of that service is our home school liaison service. Again, this is a very important programme for supporting and engaging families and working with families in need identified by a school. The third part is our school completion programme, which is in place in 500 or 600 schools and works on lots of different initiatives across the spectrum. With the support of the Department, our commitment is to mainstream as many of those programmes as possible.