Hildegarde Naughton (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being present. The school completion programme is a targeted support service for pupils in DEIS schools. It is targeted at pupils at risk of not benefiting appropriately from education due to economic or social advantage. This is most apparent in early school leavers and those with poor attendance or a lack of achievement relative to their peers. The programme has been successful in addressing these issues since it was established in 2002.

It was funded and directed by the Department of Education and Science. In 2010 the SCP was brought under the remit of the National Educational Welfare Board and it moved to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. From 1 January 2014, the SCP was brought into the newly established Child and Family Agency, Tusla, and forms part of the educational welfare service of the agency along with the educational welfare officers and the home-school liaison scheme. The programme supports 36,000 young people in schools. It is the only service within the three strands of the educational welfare service of Tusla that works on the ground in schools to support the most marginalised and vulnerable children in the education system.

I was contacted by a representative of the local management committee of the Galway city east school completion programme who wished to highlight the impact of continual budget cuts to the programme and specifically on its project which supports targeted students in seven DEIS schools on the east side of Galway city: Scoil na Trionoide Naofa, Mervue; St. Michael's national school, Mervue; Scoil San Phroinsías, Tirellan; Scoil Chaitríona junior and senior, Renmore; Castlegar national school; and Galway Community College.

Between 2008 and 2014, the Galway city east completion programme lost 22% of its funding due to continual reductions in budget allocation. The figure nationally is 33% in overall funding reduction. In the Galway city east area in 2013 and 2014, the project was forced to reduce staffing from September 2013. The hours of the most junior project workers were reduced from 35 to 20 hours per week and four part-time homework club assistants, three of whom had been employed by the project since 2006, were made redundant. This resulted in 38 fewer targeted students during 2013 and 2014 compared with the previous year. Some 48 fewer places were available to targeted students for homework support and it was no longer possible to provide 80 places on its two-week long summer camps.

There remains strong demand for this service nationally. While I accept that with the near bankruptcy of the country very difficult decisions had to be made, I now ask the Minister to commit to looking at this service again. The school completion programme is under enormous pressure. One of the main concerns is that since the programme was incorporated within the Child and Family Agency, the budget it brought with it was not ring-fenced. This is causing huge unease within the scheme for those charged with delivering the service nationally. It is simply impossible to have certainty about programmes or to plan effectively without having a ring-fenced budget. I therefore ask the Minister to look again at the area with a view to increasing the funding if possible and at least to ensure that where moneys are available to the service that they are ring-fenced for the school completion programme.