Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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689. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the funding levels for home school liaison officers and other measures to help ensure young people complete school; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30596/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Tackling educational disadvantage and supporting students to fulfil their full potential in life is a key priority for me as Minister for Education and Youth, and for the Government. The DEIS programme is a key policy of Government to tackle concentrated educational disadvantage at school level. It provides a targeted range of supports and is additional to the universal supports provided to all schools, such as the introduction of free school books and free hot school meals.

My department invests over €180 million annually to provide additional supports to almost 1,200 schools in the DEIS programme which supports approximately 260,000 students.

In Ireland, retention to Leaving Certificate is high. We have one of the lowest rates of early school leaving in the European Union. The gap in retention rates between DEIS and non-DEIS schools halved from 16.8 percentage points to 8.4 percentage points since the programme began. Supports to help retention in schools includes the School Completion Programme (SCP), Home School Community Liaison Programme (HSCL), Free School Books Scheme, and the School Meals Programme which is operated by my colleague the Minister for Social Protection.

The Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) scheme is one of the key supports provided by my department as part of the overall DEIS programme. Tusla Education Support Service manage the HSCL scheme on behalf of my department. The scheme seeks to promote partnership between parents, teachers and community family support services, with a view to supporting improved attendance, participation and retention.

All DEIS urban primary schools and all DEIS post-primary schools are included in the HSCL scheme, which currently serves 687 DEIS schools, catering for approximately 207,000 children and young people. The scheme is delivered by 528 full-time HSCL coordinators, who are teachers in these schools and assigned to HSCL duties either in individual schools or in clusters of schools. Over €36 million is spent annually on Home School Community Liaison coordinators in urban primary and post-primary schools

In addition to the above, a pilot project to support Traveller and Roma pupils, under the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy, is in operation in 4 locations with 1 HSCL coordinator assigned in each location. A further 10 HSCL Coordinators support attendance, participation and retention among Traveller and Roma students, across 14 non-DEIS post-primary schools.

The School Completion Programme, (SCP) is funded by my Department via Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) and works alongside the other 2 strands of TESS integrated service, namely the statutory Education Welfare Service (EWS) and the Home School Community Liaison Scheme (HSCL).

The SCP comprises of 121 projects and provides a robust continuum of support and interventions to over 800 schools, nationally, under the DEIS programme.

The SCP provides various levels of support, which aim to maximise the engagement, participation and retention levels of students identified as at-risk of educational disadvantage and early school leaving. The programme provides valuable supports to children and young people before, during and after the school day and over holiday periods, helping to reduce the barriers to their full participation in education.

The SCP has experienced an annual rise in core funding since the programme transferred to my department in January 2021, with the total funding for the programme now at just under €37 million.

My department provides free schoolbooks to all schools in the free education scheme at annual cost of €115 million. this ensures that cost of books and materials is not a barrier to progression for children and young people experiencing disadvantage. The Department of Social Protection has allocated €300,026,000 to the School Meals Programme for 2025, facilitating the expansion of the hot school meals scheme to over 2,200 primary schools and 345,000 children and young people. It is planned to continue to extend this programme to all schools.

My department also provides over €2.9 billion in additional supports to support children with special educational needs to be supported throughout their education towards school completion and further progression. This figure builds on previous years and represents over a quarter of the education budget.

As Minister, I am determined to close the performance gap between DEIS and non-DEIS schools and introduce more innovative solutions to tackle disadvantage. A new DEIS Plan will be published in 2025, and any expansion to the role of the HSCL coordinator will be examined in the context of the new plan. This plan will focus on improving the opportunities and achievement levels of children at risk of educational disadvantage, developing more innovative approaches to tackling educational disadvantage, and working towards a more flexible system of supports to ensure that a school can receive the right support at the right time.