Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I welcome Deputy Catherine Byrne to the House and I note her interest in disadvantaged education. She put her finger on the matter when she referred to homework clubs and the provision of basic reading materials to improve literacy. One of the main objectives of our disadvantage plan is to target literacy and numeracy, not just in the context of smaller class sizes but also with programmes such as First Steps, which is for junior infants, as well as focused programmes like maths recovery and reading recovery. I have watched teachers being trained in this sector on a one-to-one basis and great progress has been made as a result of these developments. I am sure the Deputy will be glad that children in the homework club are reading newspapers as they will be up to date on current affairs.

In a community context, children in disadvantaged schools cannot reach their potential or attain the same standards as others if we do not have the support of their families. The family literacy programme, which started this year, is an integral part of DEIS. We are targeting parents to include them in the same manner as we do with the home-school-community liaison programme. In that way, we will have a better chance not only of keeping children in school but also of improving their literacy levels.

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