David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for taking this Commencement motion himself. I tabled this motion after meeting a number of school completion programme, SCP, co-ordinators in Waterford city in recent weeks. They have been lobbying elected representatives from all parties and none on cuts to the SCP over recent years. This programme was established in 2002 to have a significant positive impact on retention levels in primary and secondary schools and the number of pupils who successfully complete the senior cycle or equivalent. All the studies show that the SCP programme has had very positive results, that more people are completing both the junior and leaving certificates and that more people are seeing through their time in primary school, which is positive.

There have been cuts to these programmes in recent years, however, which are having a direct impact on the services that the programme co-ordinators are in place to provide. At the moment, surveys of SPCs are taking place throughout the State which seek to ascertain the impact these budget cuts have had to date in the running of individual programmes. Some of the initial feedback I have seen reveals trends in the following areas: reductions to or cutting of specific supports and interventions, reductions to project workers hours, redundancies, instances of project workers and local co-ordinators finding themselves forced to take unpaid leave to maintain service provision within the allocated budget.Also, programme co-ordinators note that preventative interventions have suffered as a result of cutbacks to funding while the demand for administrative procedures has increased exponentially since the SCP was reassigned to the Child and Family Agency support called Tusla. In recent years, SCPs have been requested to desist from offering counselling by the funding agency. However, crisis situations have arisen in schools, particularly threatened suicide, where SCP has been requested by schools to provide counselling urgently. There seems to be very real issues of concern. I am sure that many co-ordinators of SCPs from across the State have been in contact with the Minister's office to express their concern about budget cutbacks.

The reason I tabled this motion is twofold. First, I wanted to get information from the Minister about the levels of funding which have gone into SCP programmes in Waterford city and county over the past three years so that we can look at the trends and at where cuts have taken place. Second, I wanted to impress upon him the impact such cuts have had on the SCP programmes. If we want to maintain the very successful figures the SCPs have been part of achieving in retaining people in primary education, then we need to maintain the levels of funding. If we cut back on funding we may drift backwards in terms of the success of the projects and programmes.

I appeal to the Minister to listen to what the co-ordinators who work on the ground have said. I hope he is in a position to make a statement on his future intentions for this programme, and that of the Government, to fund these programmes into the future.