Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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233. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills with regard to the primary online database children's form, which is currently being sent to parents to fill out, the reason the mother's details are being asked for but no details of the father; the reason the mother's maiden name, date of birth, address, nationality and language are being asked for, in view of security issues (details supplied); if the question asking whether the child is in receipt of learning support should be considered a private question that should not be asked and should not be on a database; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9611/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The only field on the Primary Online Database (POD) that relates to the mother is mother's maiden name. This is only required if PPSN is not supplied to help identify the pupil, and this field will be removed from the Department's records when confirmation of a valid PPSN is received. All other fields on POD relate to the pupil only.

Schools have recently been informed it is no longer compulsory to complete the question on Learning Support for the 2014/2015 school year.

Schools will receive further instructions for the GAM/NCSE low incidence questions for the 2015/2016 school year. It is important to note that this data does not roll over with the pupil each year.