Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Tusla Education Support Service, TESS, operates under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000. It emphasises the promotion of school attendance, participation and retention. TESS has three key strands, namely, the statutory educational welfare service, the home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme.

I recognise that returning to school is challenging for students. As schools reopen, TESS will continue to engage with families to provide advice, support and encouragement to students. TESS will work to support students in returning to school, particularly students who have been identified as having difficulties returning. It will engage with all schools to identify any students who have not returned and might require additional support. The approach to such students and their families will be entirely supportive.

The Deputy makes the point that a number of school attendance notices are issued and a number of prosecutions brought forward every year. In this context, only 6.5% of cases result in a school attendance notice and of those, only 1.5% result in a case going to court. On the basis of those figures, it is my sense that the vast majority of the work done by TESS is very much on the supportive side and to try to bring parents to get their children into school. There must be some element of sanction in the most egregious cases where, for whatever reason, parents fail to engage with the supports provided. It is important to note the small proportion of cases that go to court, which stands at 1.5%.

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