Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

That is certainly not the way a child should be treated.

Additional funding is provided to schools in respect of Traveller pupils by way of per capita grants. It is given in a flexible manner so boards of management have discretion as to how additional support can be provided to Traveller children.

At primary level, where a school has been allocated the support of a resource teacher for Traveller pupils, an enhanced level of capitation grant, currently ranging from €284 to €383.86 depending on the age of the child, is payable in respect of each Traveller child enrolled. This grant is payable in addition to the standard per capita rate of €133.58. This rate has been significantly increased in recent years from €57.14 in 1997 to over €133, which is an increase of over 134%. The school has certain flexibility with enhanced capitation which it is getting for Traveller children.

At second level, in addition to the standard per capita grant of €286 per pupil, an additional grant of €427 per pupil is paid in respect of Traveller children bringing the per capita grant to €713 per pupil per annum. That money is paid directly to the school in respect of the individual Traveller child. Schools have also benefited from increases in the per capita grant which was introduced in September 2000 under the school services support fund initiative and it now stands, with effect from January 2005, at €145 per pupil. The additional capitation grants paid in 2004 in respect of Traveller children amounted to €2.5 million at primary level and €0.88 million at post primary which is an overall total of €3.38 million.

My Department also operates a grant scheme towards the cost of providing school text books for pupils from disadvantaged families in primary and post primary schools which also benefits Traveller children. For the purposes of this scheme, a disadvantaged pupil is a pupil from a family where there is genuine hardship because of unemployment, prolonged illness of a parent, large family size with inadequate means, single parenthood or other family circumstances, such as substance abuse, which would indicate a similar degree of financial hardship.

Principal teachers administer the book grant schemes in schools in a flexible way under the terms of the schemes based on their knowledge of particular circumstances in individual cases. I hope it is done in a sensitive way. As these schemes are administered at the discretion of the school authorities, we do not have specific data on the level of book grant aid directed towards Traveller children, either generally or specifically.

A higher rate of grant is paid to primary schools which operate a loan-rental scheme and also to schools which are included in my Department's disadvantaged areas scheme. Post primary school authorities may also use the annual grant for the establishment of book loan-rental schemes. In addition, my Department provides seed capital towards the costs of establishing book rental schemes in schools designated as disadvantaged and schools which participate in other schemes designed to combat educational disadvantage.

The school book grant is paid in June each year in respect of the following school year. For the coming school year, €3.86 million was paid in respect of 2,719 schools. Under the second level scheme, grants totalling approximately €6.6 million were recently paid to eligible schools and VECs. That amounts to a figure over €10 million.

In regard to the provision of school uniforms, the Health Service Executive agencies administer the back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme on behalf of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. The purpose of this scheme is to assist qualifying recipients, namely, persons in receipt of certain social welfare or Health Service Executive payments with the cost of school clothing and footwear. The scheme is available to all families who are recipients of a qualifying payment which contains an increase in respect of the child and who satisfy the means test. The allowance is payable in respect of each qualified child.

In addition, the Health Service Executive may, under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, in any case where it considers it reasonable, and having regard to all the circumstances of the case, assist people with once-off expenditure which they could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income.

We are currently developing a five-year Traveller education strategy, the aim of which is to achieve equality of access, participation and of outcomes for Travellers for education in the context of lifelong learning. The strategy will map out the way forward in regard to Traveller education taking account of the complexity of the issues involved, the history of provision and the existing measures. It will mark out the challenges for the future and identify ways to approach those challenges. I thank Senator White for her interest.