Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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666. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated full year costs to recruit 50 additional WTE educational welfare officers. [30399/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Tusla Education Support Service which includes the statutory Educational Welfare Service (EWS), is under the remit of my department since 2021.

The primary role of the EWS is to ensure that every child either attends school regularly or otherwise receives a certain minimum education; to ensure and secure every child’s entitlement to education. Educational Welfare Officers (EWOs) are based throughout the country and work with children, young people and their families who are experiencing difficulty with school attendance. This is done through, home visits, educational welfare conferences and collaboratively working with different agencies. The main priority of the work is around the educational welfare of children and young people and to ensure that concerns around attendance are addressed before attendance becomes a crisis issue.

The estimated total cost for 50 EWOs for one full year inclusive of pay and non-pay costs is €4.2 million.

Currently there are 159 EWOs operating across the six Tusla regions. Included in this figure are twenty three EWOs who provide services to the most vulnerable children and young people, including children in care and children living in homeless accommodation, and five temporary EWO posts allocated to trial innovative approaches to supporting attendance in all schools in 2025.

A national EWO recruitment campaign took place in February 2025, from which any vacant EWO posts are currently being filled.