Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)

I apologise for being late for the start of the meeting. I was in the Dáil speaking but I read the opening statement before the meeting. I have a few questions on it.

The issue I am concerned about is not one on which I am speaking off the top of my head. I spoke about it to several teachers and others in education across Limerick, particularly in the past couple of weeks, because I knew the topic was coming up. It is an issue we have not addressed properly for a couple of years and I am not sure where the blame lies for that. Do we want to use the word "blame" at all? My concern is children who do not go to school, especially children from the Traveller community. They might go one day a week or might not go at all. The dropout rate is very high. There are many good schemes in place but they are not delivering the outcomes we would prefer to see. I do not believe we are having a dramatic impact on ensuring children go to and stay in school. What is the first thing the witnesses believe we should do to ensure that we reduce the number of Traveller children who do not go to school regularly?