Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

The Minister for Education and Science sends his apologies and has asked me to clarify the issues raised by the Deputy, particularly the Department's position on the project in question and the fund for the development of targeted educational responses to certain children at risk.

The Department of Education and Science has funded projects under this fund since 1999 with a total of €1.269 million provided annually. The main objective of the fund was to develop preventative and supportive programmes, which are targeted at children and young people who are at risk of educational disadvantage and social exclusion. The funding of proposed projects was based on an annual application process and all successful applicants were informed that commitment to funding was not given beyond one year and that no liabilities should be entered into which assumed the continued availability of funding in future years.

Typically, homework support and after school projects, early school leaving projects, mentoring and alternative provision for out of school children have been supported where they could not be accommodated through mainstream funding and where it was demonstrated that there was a gap in provision. With the introduction and expansion of the school completion programme, SCP, many projects which were funded by this fund have been integrated and into SCP projects.

Given the current volatile and challenging economic climate, difficult decisions have had to be made in order to contain public sector spending. Tax revenues are down significantly and Government expenditure has to reflect this reality. One of these decisions involves the discontinuation of the fund for the development of targeted educational responses to certain children at risk. Only commitments entered into at this time will be met from the funds for 2008. These commitments will extend to seven projects which are due to be evaluated by the Departments inspectorate in the near future. Support for all other projects will be discontinued and no consideration will be given to new applications in future years.

The main focus of social inclusion measures will be to retain resources in schools participating in DEIS and the action plan for educational inclusion. The Department of Education and Science intends to continue to focus targeted resources on the schools serving the most disadvantaged communities and this approach is in line with the broad thrust of the recommendations of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which are set out in his report on primary disadvantage of 2006, which recommended that the Department should focus its educational disadvantage measures on those schools most in need.

DEIS, the action plan for educational inclusion, is being rolled out on a phased basis over the period 2005-10 and focuses on addressing the educational needs of children and young people from disadvantaged communities, from pre-school through second-level education, those aged three to 18 years. The action plan provides for a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage and a new integrated school support programme. It brings together and builds upon a number of existing interventions in schools with a concentrated level of disadvantage. There are 876 schools in DEIS, which comprises 673 primary schools and 203 second-level schools, with 27 schools in the Finglas and Cabra areas -19 primary and eight post-primary are currently participating in DEIS and receive supports.

Such supports include reduced class sizes of 20:1 in junior and 24:1 in senior classes for band 1 primary schools, additional non-pay and capitation allocation based on their level of disadvantage, a financial allocation under the schools books grant scheme, access to numeracy and literacy supports and programmes at primary level, access to home school community liaison services; access to the school completion programme, enhanced guidance counselling provision at post-primary level, access to the junior certificate schools programme and the leaving certificate applied and provision for school library and librarian support for the post-primary schools with highest concentrations of disadvantage.

There are currently four school completion projects in Finglas and Cabra, which are in receipt of over €1 million in total annually, targeting approximately 900 young people. The objective of the school completion programme is to provide a range of interventions in areas of disadvantage that support the retention of young people in education and to develop local strategies to ensure maximum participation levels in the education process. This entails targeting individual young people of school-going age, both in and out of school, and arranging supports to address inequalities in education access, participation and outcomes.

There is considerable overlap between the aims, objectives and the services provided by the school completion programme and the project in question. In order to avoid duplication of effort and resources, it would be inappropriate for the Department of Education and Science to continue to provide funding to this project in the current economic climate.

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