Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 169: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of home liaison officers in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010; the number of home liaison officers available by county for these years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12849/11]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) is a mainstream preventative programme and a major component of DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunities in Schools), the action plan for educational inclusion, which targets pupils at risk of not reaching their potential in the educational system because of background characteristics which tend to adversely affect pupil attainment and school retention. It focuses directly on the salient adults in children's educational lives while seeking direct benefits for the children themselves.

Whereas information requested by the Deputy on a county basis is not readily available, the overall position is as follows: 1,107 schools (876 DEIS & 231 Non DEIS) had the services of 544 HSCL/rural coordinators following the introduction of DEIS from 2006 to August 2009. A small number of these schools received a grant in lieu as they are geographically isolated and cannot be clustered with other schools. Under Budget 2009, in order to contain public sector spending, one of the decisions taken by the previous government was to advance the withdrawal of HSCL/rural services from schools that had HSCL prior to DEIS but were not selected to participate in DEIS. As a consequence, there remained 452 HSCL/rural coordinators providing a service to 876 DEIS schools ( 345 urban primary, 331 rural primary & 200 post primary) from the 2009/2010 school year.