Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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419. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if the number of children in residential care has come to the attention of the education welfare board during the years 2012 to 2014 and in 2015 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13934/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The Educational Welfare Service of the Child and Family Agency has specific responsibility for the Agency’s statutory function to ensure that each child attends a recognised school or otherwise receives a certain minimum education.

The Educational Welfare Service supports regular school attendance for all school age children and young people. Where school attendance problems arise for a child, including a child in residential care, the Agency concentrates on finding solutions within a collaborative intervention framework involving children, families, schools and other relevant agencies. This work of the Educational Welfare Service falls into two key categories. It can involve a brief intervention, at an early stage, with a child to resolve a school attendance issue or more intensive and ongoing support for the child and family, from an Educational Welfare Officer, where the problem is more complex. I am advised that more than 17,000 children were provided withbrief interventions in 2013, while more than 2,400 children received an intensive intervention.

The Agency has advised that detailed information about these engagements, as they relate to children in residential care, is not readily available.