Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. There are often varied and complex reasons why a young person is not in school or needs support from an education and welfare officer. The only way we can deal with this is through everybody working together. That means the schools working with the programmes provided by the Tusla education support service. There is also an opportunity outside of school. I see a real opportunity, now that responsibility for youth is passing to the Department of Education, to provide out-of-school-hours support to create that link and to make it even stronger, but also to provide extra supports for our teachers and schools. That is where DEIS plus and the expansion of the programme that is positively impacting many young people's lives is vital. We must ensure that we identify at the earliest possible stage the challenges that young people are facing, what is going on at home and how we can provide extra resources, and, importantly, how we can work with parents and families to be able to provide wraparound support and services. There is a role for everybody, including our schools and school leaders, our education and welfare officers and our school completion programme, in the overall development of our DEIS plan to ensure it all fits and works well together.

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