John Bruton
Question:319 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science when the Education Welfare Service, under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, will be fully operational in County Meath. [11728/03]
Written Answers. - Education Welfare Service.
The Education (Welfare) Act 2000, which is now fully commenced, established the National Educational Welfare Board as the single national agency with responsibility for school attendance. The Act provides a comprehensive framework for promoting regular school attendance and tackling the problems of absenteeism and early school leaving.
To discharge its responsibilities, the board will develop a nationwide service that is accessible to schools, parents-guardians and others who are concerned with welfare of young people. For this purpose, educational welfare officers, EWOs, will be appointed and deployed throughout the country to provide a welfare-focused service to support regular school attendance and discharge the board's functions locally.
The board appointed an interim chief executive officer in August 2002 and directors of corporate services and educational services have recently taken up their posts. Some 37 former school attendance officers who were employed by local authorities under the previous legislation were transferred to the board on 5 July 2002, in accordance with section 40 of the Act. These staff are currently providing a service in the cities of Dublin, Cork and Waterford. Twenty five of these have recently accepted the terms and conditions of employment of EWO and will henceforth be carrying out the full range of EWO duties and providing a year round service rather than the school-term based service they were providing as former school attendance officers.
Proposals for the recruitment of an additional cohort of education welfare officers have been received from the board and officials of my Department had discussions with the executive of the board recently in relation to these proposals. Arising from these discussions, the executive wrote to my Department clarifying certain costs associated with its proposals. It is not possible to specify the number of new EWOs who will be put in place this year until my Department has had an opportunity to consider these proposals and costs in a multi-annual framework.
I have allocated a budget of €5.4 million to the board for the current year and it is my intention that the board's proposals will be taken forward in the context of these resources and budgetary allocations in future years. I should point out to the Deputy that decisions relating to the assignment of educational welfare officers to specific areas is a matter for the board, which is an independent statutory body.