Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 664: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the progress made in relation to the programme for Government proposal to provide a scholarship scheme for children from disadvantaged areas to attend courses in the Gaeltacht and funding for summer courses in the children's local areas. [28713/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Both Programme for Government schemes to which the Deputy refers have been repeated this year and are running successfully.

With regard to the summer courses in Irish for primary school children in designated disadvantaged schools, these are referred to as Campaí Samhraidh. Children's command of Irish is improved through participation in a range of activities, including music, arts and crafts and games, conducted through the medium of Irish. The programmes are developed by teachers working to guidelines produced by the Department of Education and Science. The scheme is run by Dublin West Education Centre in conjunction with the Primary Curriculum Support Programme. A grant of €5420 is paid to each participating school to cover the project costs. In 2008, funding of €160,000 has been provided to cover the costs of training the teachers and project costs for participating schools. There are 20 schools participating in the week long course and each school has capacity for up to 36 students from 3rd to 6th class.

The Gaeltacht Scholarship scheme has been established. It is designed to enable children enrolled in designated disadvantaged post-primary schools to attend approved summer colleges for teaching Irish. Funding of €100,000 has been made available for the scholarship scheme for 2008. Applications for the 2008 scheme are still being processed and, to date, approximately 140 have been received.