Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The difficulty is that this is a voluntary scheme and while I am reluctant to say that schools should be compelled to provide it, there should be a back-up plan in place where a school is not participating so that parents are not left in limbo. It is almost June; the scheme is supposed to start at the start of July and the affected parents have no provision in place for this year. What does the Minister say to those parents in that school in Sandymount? Will the Minister meet with those parents to discuss options?

Home support can be great for certain students, particularly those in their teenage years. However, that also presents a difficulty because parents have to source the home tutor themselves. Recently I have seen cases where, if the people sourced by the parents are not registered with the Teaching Council they are made to register. Currently the Teaching Council has said that it will be 10 July or later before these people are registered. If the scheme is supposed to start at the beginning of July the students will be disadvantaged by ten to 14 days. There are many difficulties around the administration of this voluntary scheme. We cannot really make this a compulsory scheme, but there should definitely be some sort of comprehensive back-up plan when it is not in place. It is not good enough to say that families can get a home support tutor if they go off and do all the work themselves.

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