Ms Áine O'Keeffe:

I thank the Deputy for his great question about the Education (Welfare) Act 2000. It is now 25 years old. From our service perspective, it is timely to think about a review of the Act at this point. That is a matter of which our colleagues in the Department of education are also conscious. Our stated policy platform is retention to leaving certificate or equivalent and in that context, it warrants interrogation as to what is required as part of a broader review of the Act. That would be welcome.

On current service provision, it is important to say that education and welfare officers intervene on a statutory basis for children aged six to 16. However, our school completion programme colleagues and home school community liaison co-ordinators work with all children and young people in a school setting. Services are specifically resourced in the context of the Traveller and Roma education strategy. They are doing great work about transition. I do not know if everyone would agree, but I think we need to consider other pathways for all our children in the context of the leaving certificate and other avenues to further education, training and employment. Those services support children and young people to make those transitions. What we see in the education figures is good and successful transition into post-primary school. The next area is, as the Deputy identified, the transition to the senior cycle. That is for children in our Traveller community and children more broadly. What are we doing in that space? Just over 91% of all children sit the leaving certificate examinations. There is a discussion to be had in the context of the Education (Welfare) Act.

I will speak briefly on the community link workers. We currently have 15 such workers who are sitting within school completion programme projects. We feel that through positioning those posts in the school completion programme, the learning from those 15 workers can be rolled out through existing services to strengthen the approach through long-established services on the ground.