Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The educational welfare officer should be the last port of call. It is only when a case has been dealt with by all the other bodies in respect of a particular child that the educational welfare officer should be called. That would allow them to look at the general position.

A substantial number of groups have a direct involvement with the child and his or her family but it would not be possible to designate each of them specific areas of responsibility because every child in the family is such a complex unit. There is a need for protocols between them and that is what we are working on. The assistant chief inspector is chairing the working group.

The bodies dealing with such children include the National Educational Welfare Board, the National Council for Special Education, because obviously children who may have particular learning difficulties are more likely to drop out of schools and particular attention has to be paid to them, the National Educational Psychological Service, the visiting teacher service for the hearing and the visually impaired, the home-school-community liaison scheme, the school completion programme and those directly employed in that area, and the visiting teacher service for Travellers. Through all those groups, 490 people work specifically with disadvantaged children and part of their remit is to ensure they regularly attend school. All those groups have been working together along with the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals and the Irish Primary Principals Network with a view to developing protocols for each of those groups so that those children can be targeted and the level of absenteeism reduced.

See this speech in context