Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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241. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to comment on the CSO dataset 'Educational Attendance and Attainment of Children in Care, 2018 - 2023' published recently; to outline how her Department is responding to the gaps identified for children in care in education; if her Department intends to further research this area; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3511/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The report referred to by the Deputy was published last August by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The report looks at educational attendance and attainment of children in care in January 2023 and children who left care since April 2018. It is available at

www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/fp/fp-eaacc/educationalattendanceandattainmentofchildrenincare2018-2023/.

The report is part of the CSO Frontier Series and may use new methods which are under development and / or data sources which may be incomplete, for example, new administrative data sources.

In this report, of the 9,744 children in care during January 2023 or children who left care since April 2018, 77% were successfully linked to other pseudonymised administrative data sources including Revenue, Department of Education and the Department of Social Protection

In line with the arrangements set out as part of the current Government formation, since January 2021 Tusla Education Support Services (TESS), including the administration of the Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) scheme and the School Completion Programme (SCP) is under my remit.

TESS operates under the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000, a piece of legislation that emphasises the promotion of school attendance, participation and retention. TESS has three strands namely the Statutory Educational Welfare Service (EWS) and the two school support services the Home School Community Liaison Scheme (HSCL) and the School Completion Programme (SCP). The three TESS strands work together collaboratively with schools, parents and guardians and other relevant services to achieve the best educational outcomes for children and young people. All three strands share the same national outcomes:

• Improved Attendance
• Improved Participation
• Improved Retention