Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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130. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of staff members employed to support the school completion programme in Wexford in 2022, 2023 and to date in 2024, in tabular form. [45641/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The School Completion Programme (SCP) is funded by my Department via Tulsa Education Support Service (TESS) and is a central element of the DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) programme, a key policy initiative of my Department to address educational disadvantage at school level.

TESS have operational responsibility for the SCP, with Local Projects operating under the management and direction of a Local Management Committee (LMC). The LMC is responsible for the oversight of the project delivery at local level, including the use of project resources and accountability for public funds.

Tess have advised that the total number of SCP Workers across SCP projects in Wexford from 2021 to 2024 are as set out below. These figures include SCP coordinators, SCP project workers, and sessional staff employed to support the SCP.

Since I took over responsibility for the SCP in January 2021, an additional allocation of €2.3 million was provided for the programme as part of Budget 2021 measures, increasing the SCP full year budget to €27 million from 2022. This increase allowed for the extension of SCP to an additional 28 schools and incorporated a 5 % increase in budget to current SCP funding overall.

From September 2022, an additional €4 million (€5.9 million full year) was provided to allow access to SCP to new DEIS urban primary and post-primary schools under the recent DEIS expansion. Under Budget 2023, a further increase of 5 % for SCP was negotiated and the total allocation of SCP funding for 2023 was €34 million.

The total allocation for the SCP for 2024 is over €35 million, which includes additional provision towards pay costs.

My department now spends over €180 million annually, providing additional supports to just under 1,200 schools in the DEIS programme which is aimed at improving outcomes for children and young people that attend schools in the programme.