Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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76. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when staff waiting for summer provision payments will receive same; the reason for the delays; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57215/21]

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The question is on summer provision, which is a vital service. However, it has come to our attention that there is some element of delay in the payment of staff who have worked in this service. What is the position on that? We all accept just how vital it is.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The summer provision is extremely important. This year, we doubled the funding, from €20 million last year to €40 million. Some 81,000 children are eligible along with 4,000 schools. A total of 939 schools participated this year, in an increase of 72% on last year, which is considerable.

We had 36,672 pupils, which is an increase of 60%. We recognise the risk of regression, which we said we were concerned about from the start of the pandemic. We wanted to mitigate against that, which is why we wanted expanded, enhanced summer provision this year, which we have achieved. That is on the back of the supplementary provision in Easter of this year, and the Covid learning and support scheme, CLASS.