Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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281. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of education welfare officers; if this number has increased; if he will consider increasing the number of education welfare officers if data reveals an increase number of children that have not returned to school after Covid-19 restrictions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41038/20]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) has statutory responsibility under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 for ensuring all children attend school regularly. Educational Welfare Officers (EWO's) work with families and children to overcome barriers to their school attendance, participation and retention.

TESS has been working in collaboration with my Department and the Department of Education (DoE) to support the return to school since September. As part of this process, TESS has gathered information in relation to return to school post Covid-19 closure. The verification and analysis of this data is still ongoing.

The Department of Education has requested the data be provided to them for further consideration in the context of other information inputs. TESS continues to engage with the Department of Education on this matter and once the verification and analysis is complete, a report will be provided to both my Department and the Department of Education.

My Department works with the Educational Welfare Service to ensure that necessary resources are available to support this programme and to ensure staffing levels are sufficient to deliver a high quality service for those young people most at risk of early school leaving.

There has been an increase in the number of Educational Welfare Officers (EWOs) from approximately 50 EWOs in 2014 to 98 EWOs at present.

The TESS has provided my department with the table attached below identifying the five different regions and number of Education Welfare Officers (EWO) in each region.

The number of Educational Welfare Officers (EWOs) in each region is set out below.

As the Deputy will be aware, An Taoiseach announced, as part of his speech on the formation of Government on Saturday 27 June, that “Educational welfare functions will be returned to the Department [of Education].” and arrangements for the transfer of functions are now at an advanced stage.