Ms Cliodhna O'Neill:

I thank the Deputy. With regard to expulsions and suspensions, that is obviously something that is undertaken by a board of management only after a significant procedure. It has to be in line with the school's published code of behaviour and so on. Every school has a code of behaviour it is required to develop. Schools develop that in consultation with parents and pupils of the school. Tusla Educational Support Service, TESS, is currently developing new guidelines and a code of behaviour for schools. I would have to double check, but I believe that will be coming out later this year. We do have data on the number of expulsions within schools. The data I have here for 2022 is 85 within post-primary schools and seven in primary schools. That data is not disaggregated. It does not have ethnicity data. That is not something Tusla Educational Support Service collects. It is my understanding that we do not have a marker for that.

I do not have any specifics on whether there are Traveller children included in that number or if so, how many.