Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)

It works differently in different committees. Should I speak fast or slow?

I was delighted to see in the briefing document that Traveller culture will be discussed and learned about in schools. That is important. It was one of the points raised in my research by a young person who said she would love to see that in school because it had been difficult for her to even say she was from the Traveller community. When she did, people did not understand her and she really wanted to have that in her school, so I am delighted to see that.

A point was raised earlier about educational welfare officers, EWOs, and social workers working closely. They do, but the referral has to be separate. They are two different referrals and I want that to be clear. They work on the same team, but if the referrals are not made separately, an educational welfare officer cannot and will not go to a social worker and vice versa to ask whether the other has heard about Mary or John. They do not and cannot do that under many different regulations. The referrals have to be made. From working in school completion for a long time, I always say we need to refer many young people who are not in attendance. After 20 days is one thing, but there are many young people for whom attendance is an issue. When attendance is an issue, participation and learning is difficult and we find that literacy levels for children who miss a lot of days of school mean that when they get to secondary school they cannot understand what is going on. The problem is that they will then not be able to complete first and second year and therefore they will be gone.

Reduced timetables is the angle I am coming from, but there are different reasons people do not attend. Will the witnesses give me an update? I know what the plan is, but specifically, how will we work with reduced timetables and other attendance initiatives?