Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party)
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516. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her views on the matter of schools collecting the personal public service, PPS, numbers of their pupils; if this is being done to comply with a policy or a requirement from her Department; the details of this policy or requirement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5796/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Department of Education and Skills is currently developing an individualised electronic database of primary school pupils (POD – the Primary Online Database). Individualised data coverage has already been in place for a number of years at pre-primary, post-primary and third level education. The primary purpose of POD will be to monitor the education progress of primary pupils (in DES aided schools), throughout the primary system and onwards to post primary level and to help them develop their full educational potential. Once up and running other secondary purposes of POD will include becoming the basis for the allocation of teachers and capitation grants.The Department has consulted with the Data Protection Commissioner in relation to the collection of individual pupil information for the Primary Online Database. They have stated that PPSN can now be collected by schools with the purpose being it is a requirement of the Primary Online Database. A PPS number is an individual's unique identification number for all dealings with the Public Service, including Social Welfare, tax, education and health services. Having the PPSN on the database will help ensure that there are no duplicate records in the system i.e that two schools do not have the same child on their roll. In the future we will be able to track pupils from early childhood education, to primary school and onto post-primary, which will allow us to ensure that every child in the State of compulsory school age is in education.