Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

In respect of the back to education initiative, between last year and this year, an additional 1,500 people are benefitting from it. Consequently, I do not believe the Deputy is correct to state it is obviously too restrictive. It is a highly valuable source of support for many people. As for child care, the adult education child care service is available to those who participate in the vocational training opportunities scheme, VTOS, and it was expanded last year. It now caters for 1,700 student parents and their 2,300 children. This is a highly flexible approach and it deals with everyone, adults, early school leavers, travellers and groups in general that have under-participated in the various levels of education. I believe that between the different Departments, it is targeting all the different groups. Given the investment of €392 million in all the aforementioned areas, as well as the inclusion of the two critical elements of child care and education guidance, real results will be seen from this initiative.

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