Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I want to assure the House and the Deputy that meeting the educational needs of children coming to Ireland from the Ukraine is a priority for this Government. I acknowledge the terrific work that is being done on the ground in terms of meeting the needs and the challenges. I have had the opportunity to visit a number of schools throughout the country. I visited Trinity Comprehensive School, Ballymun recently. The welcome, inclusion and effort that is being put in place by school communities is second to none.

As the Deputy may be aware, to help ensure good co-ordination and alignment of supports for Ukrainian children arriving in Ireland, I have established regional education and language teams, REALT.These teams will be hosted by the 16 regional education and training boards, ETBs, and will be staffed by existing regionally-based education support personnel working closely together to ensure good co-ordination and alignment of supports for Ukrainian children. My Department will be liaising with the teams to ensure all necessary supports for the Ukrainian children and young people are provided as quickly as possible.

The primary role of the REALT will be to assist children and young people in finding school places and to support schools in the area to meet the needs of these children as they emerge, to advise and support the Department in developing new capacity where required and to co-ordinate the provision of education services to children, young people and families across their defined area. These teams will ensure that clear, accessible information flows are in place between schools, local education support services and national support structures in relation to Ukrainian arrivals.

The regional teams will be hosted and administratively supported within the ETBs and will lead a network of other key agencies, including Tusla Education Support Service, TESS, National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, regional personnel, National Council for Special Education, NCSE, regional personnel and management body local nominees working together with local schools. All of the key agencies working together in a holistic manner will bring added value and efficiencies to the process of supporting young people and children from the Ukraine.

The teams will initially focus on ensuring that children find school places when they are ready to engage with the school system. The utilisation of capacity within existing schools across the country will be a very important aspect for addressing the need for education provision for Ukrainian children. The Department already has data on potential capacity and under or over subscription at individual schools from its national inventory of school capacity based on schools' annual enrolment returns, and utilises its Geographic Information System, GIS, to facilitate spatial analysis of this and other data. The Department will be engaging further with schools and education partners to supplement this data.

Additionally, the Department is currently working to put arrangements in place to share all of this available information on school capacity with the REALT. The spatial analysis facilitated by the Department's GIS supports the production of capacity reports to help the REALT to identify potential local school take-on capacity, based on a given geographical location, such as an accommodation centre. Reports will include data on schools within ranges of travel distances from that identified centre. This facility is expected to be available to the REALT shortly.

TESS will work with all local providers on an ongoing basis to ensure that children and young people are enrolled in school as soon as possible. As part of the process to ensure this, TESS will receive information on families with children of schoolgoing age in different locations. TESS will play a key role in identifying school places through linking with local schools as part of the REALT and in working collaboratively across all Departments and agencies to identify and remove all barriers to school attendance. The education and welfare officer teams in TESS have been briefed on the co-ordination role of the REALT. The education and welfare service is a key part of the REALT co-ordination response and will be part of the teams.

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