Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to the Deputy on that and try to delve into those figures. The Department cannot compel schools to participate in the programme because participation in the school-based summer programme is voluntary, and it is a matter for boards of management and schools to decide whether they will run the programme. What the Department has done is reach out to all schools, as we continue to do, in respect of what the barriers are and that is where the issues of pay, access to teachers and SNAs, the portal and increasing the grants for them came in. We will continue to do this because we all absolutely value the importance of the programme. I know we are singing off the one hymn sheet here, but it is important that more schools engage on this. The Department and I will also be looking at this through the budgetary process to see what else we can do to encourage schools.

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