Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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354. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount it would cost to fully restore all cuts to the Traveller education budget and supports. [36411/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Policy of my Department in relation to Traveller education is underpinned by the National Traveller and Roma Strategy 2017 – 2021 which was developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders including Traveller representative groups.

The focus of current provision is on the development of a more inclusive school environment through the whole school planning process, teaching practice, admissions policies, codes of behaviour and whole school evaluation.

In keeping with this principle, additional resources provided in the education system are allocated on the basis of identified individual educational need rather than that of ethnic or cultural background.

A key objective of Traveller education policy in recent years has been the phasing out of segregated Traveller provision and the inclusion of Traveller children and young people in mainstream education. Funding for segregated Traveller provision has been incorporated into overall school and other funding streams in order to provide supports for Traveller pupils in mainstream schools.

However, a number of Traveller-specific supports have been retained to assist with the transfer to mainstream provision including additional pupil capitation and additional resource teacher posts to support some 11,000 Traveller pupils in primary and post-primary education. The current cost of this additional provision is €10 million.

As the Deputy will appreciate, the restoration of previous funding arrangements would necessitate the re-introduction of segregated provision for Travellers.

As the Deputy may be aware, DEIS Plan 2017 which I launched earlier this year includes a number of specific actions to improve educational outcomes for Traveller children and young people in the education system. I have also announced a number of interventions this year under the National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2015-2019 to support under-represented groups such as Travellers in progressing to further and higher education.