Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community (2023) debate -
Thursday, 11 Apr 2024

Traveller Education Policy: Department of Education

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I propose we publish on the committee website the following documents provided by the Department of Education - the opening statement, the briefing, the letter about the supporting Traveller and Roma, STAR, project and the letter about the homework clubs. Is that agreed? Agreed. I suggest we invite our witnesses to speak for between five and ten minutes and allow members to ask questions or make comments for approximately five minutes. Members may speak more than once. Is that agreed? Agreed.

This is the committee's first meeting on the subject of Traveller education policy. However, the previous committee completed a considerable amount of work on this subject. The final report of the previous committee made 23 recommendations regarding Traveller education policy. The committee is grateful to our witnesses for appearing today. From the Department of Education we have Ms Cliodhna O'Neill, assistant secretary, Ms Gráinne Cullen, principal officer in the social inclusion unit, Mr. Frank Hanlon, principal officer in the special education section, and Ms Kate Waterhouse, assistant principal officer in the social inclusion unit. We are interested to hear about the progress the Department of Education has made in implementing those 23 recommendations. We are also interested to hear about the Department's policies relating to the visiting teacher service, the provision of after-school homework clubs to the Traveller community, the guidelines on reduced school days and more. I invite Ms O'Neill to make her opening statement on behalf of the Department.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and the committee members for their invitation to attend. I am the acting assistant secretary in the Department of Education with responsibility for the schools division for social inclusion. I am joined by Ms Gráinne Cullen, principal officer with responsibility for social inclusion, Mr. Frank Hanlon, principal officer with responsibility in the special education division, and Ms Kate Waterhouse, assistant principal officer, also in social inclusion.

This meeting is very timely as the Department is pleased to say it is making considerable progress in work to develop a Traveller and Roma education strategy, in line with the commitment in the programme for Government and in the context of the new national Traveller and Roma inclusion strategy, NTRIS. We are working in close collaboration with Traveller and Roma organisations and in partnership with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in this regard.

A significant consultation process is under way with the Traveller and Roma communities, including children and young people from those communities, with a view to developing a draft for the relevant Ministers at the end of this quarter. In fact, a consultation event is taking place this morning in County Cork, pretty much as we speak. This consultation and the strategy are also commitments in the Department’s annual statement of priorities and annual plan, Forbairt. This is the background against which our work on implementing many of the committee’s recommendations in its report is occurring. Today’s engagement will also feed into our work on the strategy. The Department’s statement of strategy for 2023 to 2025 sets out our vision for an education system where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach his or her full potential. This drives all our work and will be a guiding principle in the Traveller and Roma education strategy.

I will address some of the key points raised by the committee in correspondence. A key objective of Traveller education policy in recent years has been a move towards greater inclusion. This has included the phasing out of segregated education provision for Traveller children and the inclusion of Traveller children and young people in mainstream education. In line with this policy objective, funding previously used for segregated provision for Traveller children has been incorporated into overall school and other funding streams in order to provide additional supports necessary to enable Travellers’ participation in mainstream education on equal terms.

The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, programme is a key policy initiative of the Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and equitable way. In 2022, a refined DEIS identification model was used to identify schools for an expansion of the DEIS programme. The new model now ensures that the number of Traveller and Roma children enrolled in a school is calculated into the DEIS identification model. The DEIS programme was expanded significantly in 2022 to include 322 additional schools in the programme, which as a result now supports 1,196 schools. As a result of this expansion, the percentage of Travellers enrolled in schools in the DEIS programme and benefiting from the supports has increased considerably. In the 2020-21 school year, 52% of Travellers enrolled in primary schools were in schools supported through the DEIS programme. This increased to 71.9% in the 2022-23 school year, following the extension using the refined model.

At post-primary level, the figures increased from 48.6% to 55% over the same period. This equates to more than 63% of Travellers across primary and post-primary levels, compared with an overall proportion of 25% of students, in schools supported through the DEIS programme nationally. The Department spends in excess of €180 million on additional supports through DEIS annually. While not all Traveller children attend DEIS schools, all schools are eligible to receive additional capitation based on the number of Traveller children enrolled in the school. The basic capitation rate is €200 per student in primary schools and up to €345 per student in post-primary schools. Additional pupil capitation for Travellers is €75 per pupil at primary level, and €213.50 per pupil at post-primary level. This is provided at a current annual cost of €1.3 million.

External to DEIS, ten additional home-school community liaison co-ordinators now support 14 post-primary schools outside of the DEIS programme, where a need has been identified due to the number of Traveller and Roma children attending. This is funded through the Dormant Accounts Fund.

The visiting teacher service for Travellers was discontinued in 2011. While this was a budgetary measure as part of a reduction in the education budget, it was done in line with the policy move towards inclusion and away from segregated provision. In our schools, the allocation model for special education teachers facilitates targeted supports for all students who require additional support, including literacy and numeracy support. This includes the provision of support to Traveller children in an integrated and inclusive context.

On reduced school days, the Department published guidelines on the use of reduced school days, which came into effect from January 2022. The guidelines set out that the use of reduced school days must be limited, may be considered by a school only where it is deemed absolutely necessary and can only be implemented with the consent of a student’s parent or guardian. Schools must inform the Tusla education support service, TESS, when a student is placed on a reduced school day. The Department will continue to monitor the use of reduced school days, including through the work of the inspectorate. We will publish and review data on the use of reduced school days to understand more about when and how these are used in schools. We now have this data for the first time. We will check to see that reduced school days are used in line with the guidance, only where necessary, and to the benefit of the child or young person.

Several Department programmes can support homework clubs for students at risk of educational disadvantage, including Traveller children. These include the DEIS grant, which many schools use to support homework clubs after school, and other after-school activities aimed at groups of children deemed to be at most risk of educational disadvantage, including Traveller children. The school completion programme, SCP, which supports attendance, participation and retention across DEIS schools, can also be used to support after-school clubs. Homework clubs are also among the initiatives currently under way as part of the supporting Traveller and Roma, STAR, in education pilot project. The Leas-Chathaoirleach referenced the letter we sent to the committee regarding STAR. There are also some after-school activities and homework clubs, provided through Tusla and funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and other sources, which do not fall within the Department’s remit.

The pilot STAR project was established in 2019 and rolled out incrementally across four pilot sites. It aims to address the barriers impacting on Traveller and Roma attendance, participation and retention in education. It is funded jointly with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and provides educational welfare officers, home-school community liaison officers and Traveller or Roma community education workers, who work together with the schools to support children and families. The TESS and Traveller and Roma representative bodies are key stakeholders in this project. An independent evaluation is currently under way by the Centre for Effective Services and will be completed in the coming months. This will provide information and evidence to inform the development of the Traveller and Roma education strategy.

On the recommendations, we have sent the committee an update on the implementation of the recommendations of the committee’s report, which we are happy to discuss further today.

I will briefly reference the Department’s Cineáltas: Action Plan on Bullying, which is based on the UNESCO whole-school approach and aims to ensure that schools are welcoming and inclusive for all. It was greatly informed by consultation with children and young people, including Traveller children and young people. I also refer to the Department’s work in ensuring that children and young people are meaningfully included in decision-making on issues that impact them. The views of Traveller and Roma children are also captured in this work and will continue to be.

The Department is deeply committed to providing a supportive and inclusive education system for all children and young people. We have built strong relationships with stakeholders and we believe we are working in real partnership to develop the Traveller and Roma education strategy.

I thank members for giving us the opportunity to engage with them during today’s meeting. We look forward to answering their questions and using today's discussions to inform the ongoing development of the Traveller and Roma education strategy in the context of NTRIS.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

We will open it to the floor. Have members any questions on what has been said?

Deputy David Stanton

I thank the officials for the presentation, for the work they are doing and for being with us. A huge amount of work is going on. I read the material the Department sent us, which is quite comprehensive. There is a certain amount of déjà vu about this. In the previous NTRIS, there was a review and recommendations for a Traveller education strategy to be reviewed by the Department, with the review to be published in early 2017. Can the officials tell me what happened to that? It seems this has happened already. There was a strategy in the past and a review was to be published in early 2017, according to the previous NTRIS. Was that shelved? Did anything come of it?

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

At present, we are concentrating on developing our consultation process and all the work we are doing on the draft strategy, which we hope to publish by quarter 2 of this year. That is a commitment in the Department's action plan for this year. As I said, the final phase of the consultation process is taking place today. We have done an enormous amount of work on research and preparation for materials to be published along with publication of the draft report.

One of my colleagues will probably speak to the amount of work and the detail that has gone into that. I am not certain but I believe that the work was brought to a particular point and was not completed for various reasons. Following a review of the work that was undertaken, extended and additional consultation and research, etc., we are now in a strong position. We are confident that we will be able to publish the report at the end of quarter 2 as we have committed to.

Deputy David Stanton

I thank Ms O'Neill.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

My colleagues may wish to add to that.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

Ms O'Neill has covered it. All the previous work has fed into the work we are currently doing.

Deputy David Stanton

It has been seven years. How many identified or self-identified Traveller children are in primary and secondary school at the moment?

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

We have many figures, as the Deputy can imagine. I will hand over to Ms Cullen, who has the data in front of her.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

I am looking to see if I have those figures to hand.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

We certainly have those figures. The Deputy might give is a moment.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

It will take me a second to locate it.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I might say a quick word on data while Ms Cullen looks for those figures. We published data that is better disaggregated this year for the first time. That was something to which we had committed and we are keen to look at that. We are undertaking a data strategy within the Department and as part of the development of the Traveller and Roma education strategy, we want to be sure that the data we are collecting and publishing is as good as possible and that we are as transparent as possible in the data we have because that also allows us to understand the data we do not have, what else we might collect and what is appropriate to collect. When we are collecting data in respect of children and schools, it is provided on a voluntary basis. Schools usually collect the data at enrolment or pre-enrolment stage. We know that not all schools collect the data but we have verified the data that we do have. The statistics section in the Department is headed by a senior statistician on secondment from the Central Statistics Office, CSO. That section has verified the data against CSO data and we are confident it is as accurate as it can be.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

It has taken me a moment to find that information; I was in a bit of a flap. At primary level, there are 8,309 Traveller children and there are 3,370 at post-primary level.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

That comes with the caveat that it refers to self-declared Travellers.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

We would always say that is the minimum number in the system.

Deputy David Stanton

The submission refers to reduced school days, which caused a lot of concern in the past. There are restricted timetables. Schools have to inform the Tusla education support service when a student is placed on a reduced school day. What are the statistics in that regard? How many students are on a reduced school day? How many of those are Traveller or Roma children?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

We published the first set of data back in September 2023, relating to the 2022-2023 school year. There was a total of 1,044 children on a reduced school day, 97 of whom were Traveller children.

Deputy David Stanton

Is there a breakdown by primary or secondary school?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

Is the Deputy asking about a breakdown in respect of Traveller children?

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

The total number in primary school is-----

Mr. Frank Hanlon

There are 38 in primary school and 52 in post-primary school.

Deputy David Stanton

That is the second level.

Mr. Frank Hanlon

That is correct. There are also seven in special schools. That is a total of 97.

Deputy David Stanton

Have our guests any information as to why those children were placed on reduced or restricted timetables?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

It seems to be for a variety of reasons. The first thing is that before these reports were published and before the guidelines were in place, there was a lot of criticism that we did not know how many children were on reduced days or reduced timetables. We now know the number. We have done some exploration with the Tusla education support service and with our inspectorate whereby we have checked with a number of schools where this is happening. It can happen for a multitude of reasons but one of the common themes seems to be anxiety, mental health issues and trauma. Those seem to be the major reasons given in that cohort. Many of the children fall into the category of having special educational needs and there are separate interventions in that regard. The whole purpose of the guidelines is to use restricted timetables in a positive context. It is supposed to be a positive intervention. There are plans in place to reintegrate people back into school. This cannot be a long-term solution to anything. That is where it is coming from.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

To add to that, the commitment in the programme for Government around this issue was to ensure robust data collection and also that reduced timetables are only used in a limited, appropriate and necessary manner. We have taken action in respect of that. We published the guidelines for schools, which came into effect in January 2022. Since then, we have been able to publish the data for the first time. It means we are able to track and to follow up with the schools, which the inspectorate does. We contact the schools to ensure the reduced school days are only being used in accordance with the guidelines. The primary objective must be that the best interests of the child are used here. Because we have new guidance and are doing the follow up, we are seeing better use. We hope we will continue to see appropriate use of restricted timetables, along with the streamlining of the notification process. It also allows us to consider individual case management, where necessary, with, for example, the National Council for Special Education, Tusla and the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, within the Department.

Another thing that has been important has been informing Traveller parents of their rights in respect of this. We had an enormous amount of assistance and support from the Traveller community in developing materials for Traveller parents about reduced school days. They kindly participated in making videos with us and checked the materials that were being developed for parents. They are helping to get the message out so that parents understand the purpose of reduced school days, what they are for and what they are not for, so they are better able to advocate at school level and ensure the best interests of the child are being followed.

Deputy David Stanton

That is good. I know in the past it has caused a lot of anxiety, especially for mothers whose children were in school at 9 a.m. and gone at 10 a.m. There did not seem to be any kind of follow-up or connectivity but I am glad to hear it is being monitored closely now and that systems are in place to ensure that children are not on the streets when they should be in school or at home.

How many homework clubs are there? Where are they? What levels are they working at? Are they for primary or secondary school? How many children are benefiting from them?

Ms Gráinne Cullen

We do not have the data about how many homework clubs are in place around the country. The funding that is provided to the Tusla education support service for the school completion programme would be the main funding from the Department that goes towards homework clubs. Schools can use their general funding to target supports for children, including things such as homework clubs, and they do so. The people in the schools are close and can understand where the needs are. Targeted support for homework clubs would come under the school completion programme. There are 126 of those projects across the country and they work across clusters of schools. A co-ordinator works with the schools to develop activities. There are also breakfast clubs. It is about the piece surrounding the school day. However, we do not have data for how many schools run a homework club, how many Travellers would be in those clubs or anything like that.

Deputy David Stanton

Is there any evaluation of the benefits of homework clubs, after-school clubs or whatever you want to call them, where children can get something to eat, help with homework and have some fun? When they go to school the next day, they can at least be on a par with their peers with respect to understanding what is going on, having had the support to do homework where they may not have it at home.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

That is absolutely the case.

The Tusla education service reviews the school completion programme. It follows up on what has been learned and brings it back into the very comprehensive training programme it has for all its co-ordinators and workers across the system.

The DEIS review will look at activities that work well with children. We are currently undertaking a major review of the DEIS programme and the consultation process as well. The work Ms Waterhouse has been doing on the consultations on the Traveller and Roma strategy itself is gathering a lot of information. It is getting really good examples of what works well. We particularly looked for schools where Traveller and Roma children were actually staying in school longer, move into the junior certificate cycle and on into the leaving certificate cycle. We can use the information from those schools to develop our consultation processes for the NTRIS. A lot of the rich material we are getting back in will feed into the actions around the strategy.

Deputy David Stanton

It would be interesting to see the statistics on it as well. I have visited one or two of these homework clubs. I was highly impressed by the atmosphere, the work being done and the positivity around it. The way the teachers and others work with the young people in those clubs make them happy places. I saw primary school-age children. It was not a scientific analysis but from going in and soaking up the atmosphere, I was very impressed. I would be interested in seeing those developed a bit more and looking at the research on them to see how beneficial they are. It starts at a very young age - preschool - and the kids move up from there. What I saw was very impressive, but the witnesses are the experts in this regard. They have the statistics and the research.

I want to ask about apprenticeships and traineeships and the issue of career guidance and counselling, especially with respect to Traveller and Roma children. What are the findings there? Where are they ending up in terms of work, further education and training? School completion was mentioned earlier. How many Traveller children get to do the leaving certificate or the applied leaving certificate, for example?

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I can certainly speak about retention at school level. The Deputy will be aware that further education and training is under the auspices of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. I have a very small amount of information from a shared publication we have in respect of that but I cannot really speak to that more broadly. When we look at retention, we look at the cohort, which means a group of pupils and when they entered school. We look at students entering in first year. The most recent data we have is for students who entered first year in 2016. These people would have progressed to leave school, if they sat the leaving certificate, either five or six years later, so the most recent data we have is from two years ago.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

The headline figures are, moving from primary to post-primary, 95% to 99% of Traveller children progress from sixth class into first year. At junior cycle, 90% who enter in first year are still in the system in third year. It then starts to drop, with 72% sitting the junior certificate examination. In the past five years, that has been an increase of 10%, so the trend is going in the right direction. At leaving certificate level, 44% are still in the system in the second year. Again, the drop happens when they sit the leaving certificate, with that figure being 31.4%. This is really where we target the work, around the post-primary piece, particularly at those around 16 years of age, which is when compulsory education finishes. The big question is to how to keep those children in the system, and more importantly, how to get them through.

An interesting statistic is published in our annual retention data. There are quite a number of Traveller children on the Solas further education and training, FET, system. I think 45% of the children who start in first year, rather than finishing in school, are finishing in the FET system.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I could speak more to that but it is worth noting that the NTRIS is across three Departments, namely: the Departments of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Education, and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. As Ms. Cullen said, there is a strong correlation between enrolment in FET and retention to leaving certificate. If there is a drop in one, there is a rise in the other. Students choose a pathway at that point. The figure for junior cycle retention usually correlates with the school-leaving age of 16.

Deputy David Stanton

I could go on for ages on this topic but I will limit myself to one or two more questions. Will Mr. Hanlon please tell me about the access and inclusion AIM model for children with disabilities and how that benefits Traveller and Roma children?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

There is the pilot programme the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, is currently running in a particular area. Ultimately, this intended to benefit all the children in the school system who have special educational needs. Speech and language therapy and other therapy supports are a part of this. I am sorry; am I missing the point?

Deputy David Stanton

I was asking about the AIM programme for children with disability.

Mr. Frank Hanlon

My apologies.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

Sorry, there is another programme with the same name, as it happens. Unfortunately, it has a very similar name. Regarding the early years AIM programme, none of us are early years specialists and I am afraid we do not have specific information on it. However, we can get it from colleagues who are co-located with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It is not under our auspices but we can provide the Deputy with the information.

Deputy David Stanton

In that case, I will move on. One of the issues that comes to us every so often is the importance of people from the Traveller community becoming teachers. I have come across situations where I have seen Traveller teachers. When the Traveller children discover that the teacher is a Traveller as well it creates really positive engagement. Will the witnesses please comment on that? In the previous NTRIS, one of the aims was to encourage young Traveller students to consider becoming teachers.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

The Department has a programme called Teaching Transforms, which is aimed at promoting the teaching profession generally to young people who might consider becoming teachers. One of the elements of the programme is to expand the diversity of the profession and to ensure the possibility of becoming a teacher is presented to young people who might not have previously considered it. As part of the programme, there is a national advertising campaign. There are also outreach elements to it and information is provided to guidance counsellors throughout the school system. It is very focused on trying to broaden the diversity and to ensure that young people understand how to become a teacher, what that is like and to show people as teachers who students might not yet have come across. If you cannot see it, you cannot be it, so to speak. This helps students to visualise themselves in the teaching profession and imagine themselves being there. While the programme is not specifically aimed at the Traveller population, there is an awareness that broadening access to the Traveller community needs to happen as part of the strategy. To do that, as the Deputy noted, the students have to achieve the standards, so they must be retained to leaving certificate. The focus in the Traveller education strategy on retention to leaving certificate will be really important as we continue to try to develop the diversity of the teaching profession.

The number of places for student teacher has increased hugely over the past number of years and we have also broadened the pathways to teaching.

The Department continues to look at that to see whether there are other methods of entry into the teaching profession. Those efforts are mostly underpinned by the desire to try to diversify the profession and see what other pathways would be possible.

Deputy David Stanton

Again to jump to something else, there is the STAR programme and the home school community liaison pilot with ten new co-ordinator posts in non-DEIS schools as well. Does Ms O'Neill have any indication as to how successful those programme are, with the home school community liaison people in place in particular, and the engagement with parents and the home as well?

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

Absolutely, and it is a testament to the home school liaison programmes and so on that we have expanded those beyond DEIS, specifically to support schools where there is a high concentration of Travellers. Ms Waterhouse may wish to take that question.

Ms Kate Waterhouse

I thank the Deputy. We have feedback from the ten new HSCLs. DEIS has gathered data from them. They are supported through training and through sharing of good practice with the HSCLs and other teams members in STAR. We have a STAR co-ordinator who is funded from the Dormant Accounts Fund and who works to make sure good practice is shared between our ten new HSCLs and the STAR teams. I will go through some of the feedback to let members know what it has been regarding those ten HSCLs and what they have felt the impact has been. Obviously, as they are in schools that are not supported through the DEIS programme, it is the first time those schools have had a HSCL co-ordinator within the school. The HSCLs have found that they have had an impact on the school culture in creating a more reflective process such as in some cases the school thinking about how it is meeting the needs of all its students. In some cases, they have been able to create a time and budget to engage much more with the parents. As that is a large amount of feedback from all HSCLs, as well as HSCLs in the STAR programme, there is a huge amount of engagement and support of parents and Traveller and Roma parents. I will go into that a little bit more.

Another piece is in creating positive relationships with families, increasing the engagement of those families and parents with the education system and improving the parents' experience of education. In many cases, those parents may have had negative experiences and having this positive engagement and relationship built on trust and respect improves the whole engagement with the education system. What the HSCLs have found is that there is a complex intergenerational experience there which they work to try to address in partnership and in conjunction with families and parents. A lot of the time of the HSCLs and much of the impact happens in the course of home visitation and that is part of building those positive relationships, as well as trust and mutual respect.

They also have noted that in a lot of cases, there are many complex needs that go beyond education. A lot of work happens by engaging with other community supports and other services that are available to support those other more complex needs. A lot of work also goes into relationships with community and other organisations, including Traveller and Roma organisations. A lot of worthwhile time is spent in this regard, as a lot of support comes from those other organisations as well.

Obviously, a huge amount of work goes into attendance, especially post Covid. Regarding retention and participation in school, the HSCL co-ordinators have found that attendance is the first and most important step to address. A lot of time is being spent on that at individual level and at broader levels with things like attendance drives, and again, the parental partnerships. For example, in 2022 and 2023, 252 parents attended events organised by HSCLs in those schools and many of those had a focus on literacy and numeracy and supporting parents in that sense. They also encouraged a large number of parents in those schools to participate in parents' councils. Overall, what came across from the feedback was that they were really bridging a gap between families and the schools. That is what we have heard from the ten HSCL co-ordinators.

Deputy David Stanton

I have two more questions. One is on bullying. I mentioned anxiety earlier on but bullying is an issue. Some Traveller children find they do not go to school because of the bullying culture that can be in a school. I am aware of the programme called Cineáltas: Action Plan on Bullying. Is that helping and supporting the Traveller children who are experiencing bulling who may decide not to go to school because of it?

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

The Deputy referenced the action plan on bullying, which comes under the umbrella term, Cineáltas. The Minister published that on 1 December 2022 and it is a unique programme. It is new in that it is one of the first programmes - I think globally - to take the UNESCO whole education approach to prevent and address bullying. The principles of that are prevention, support, oversight and community. There are 61 actions in Cineáltas and we are working through those at the moment. However, a really important point about Cineáltas, which I referenced earlier, is how much it was informed by the experiences of children and young people. When we were doing the consultations with children and young people, at a certain point we realised we did not have sufficient Traveller voice in that consultation so we specifically went out to find that. We were running consultations supported by our colleagues in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and in Hub na nÓg and more than one specific consultation with Traveller children was held to ensure we caught those voices. There was very rich data and information from there about their experiences that fed into the overall Cineáltas programme. At the moment, where we are with Cineáltas is updating the anti-bullying procedures for schools, which needed to be updated, and we are quite close to the end of that work. It is going to take a little bit of time to finish that off but again, it has been a huge consultation process and again, the voices of Traveller children and young people, and the voices of Travellers more generally, have been key to the development of those. What that will provide is a new set of procedures for schools to use in their own anti-bullying work but it is all rooted in this whole-of-education approach, which recognises the importance of family, community, student experience and so on. There are specific actions within Cineáltas that relate to the Traveller community and those are being working through at present as part of that. When we see the Traveller and Roma education strategy, Cineáltas also will be knitted through that because it is part of our approach to well-being within schools. The Minister has said multiple times that schools are fundamentally and should be places of welcome for everyone and this is one of the methods by which we are trying to ensure that happens. However, those voices and capturing those voices was incredibly important.

Deputy David Stanton

My final question has to do with counselling and psychological services for Traveller children who are experiencing anxiety as was referenced earlier. It was mentioned earlier that some children do not go to school due to anxiety and there were obviously other issues. Bullying probably would be related to it as well.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

Yes. I imagine the Deputy is familiar with the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, which provides supports in all schools. It has a programme of working with individual schools as children are identified and as supports are required for those children, as I know the Deputy is aware. Separate from that, the Minister launched a pilot programme of counselling with several strands this year in primary schools. That pilot is being run at present and the data from it will obviously be used to inform future developments in this area. At post-primary level, just in the last week, the Minister announced a call for tenders for a new programme of mental health supports at this level, so that is a new initiative to support in this space. With the well-being framework within schools, the Cineáltas programme, the NEPS programme and these two new additional programmes, we have a lot of the building blocks for a framework of support in place. We are aware, of course, that there are children who experience particular issues and anxieties and the primary counselling pilot will enable schools to identify those children, to refer them for a specific stream of counselling for an appropriate number of sessions, and then for them to be supported again, by the NEPS system and back in the school system.

Senator Eileen Flynn

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach. For me, sitting here, I have written down many statistics and figures that have been thrown out in front of us this morning. I am thinking of my little four-year-old at home who wants to be a doctor. She is in early education.

When she grows up she wants to be a doctor, and I hope with all my heart my child has the same equality of opportunities as any other child in this country. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for members of the Traveller community.

I was an education worker in 2011 for the Irish Traveller Movement. It was one of my first jobs. Back then we were looking for the same data and information Deputy Stanton has been looking for this morning. It is this negative cycle we see with poverty and the way it can keep going around in a cycle. We are seeing this within the Department of Education and it is very unfortunate to see that over 12% of Travellers in secondary school are on reduced timetables. It is 10% in primary school and 24% in special and additional needs schools. I had a very interesting conversation with the Leas-Chathaoirleach. We were going to save equality in this country yesterday, me and him. It is not a funny matter and we were looking at a solution. The reduced timetable is based on the child’s health needs, so it should be given by a doctor that this child should be on a reduced timetable instead of the teacher or school making that call. A Traveller mother came to me since these reports were launched and I was speaking to her about the reduced timetables. She told me her child was on a reduced timetable because he is bold. We know there is a delay in many Travellers being diagnosed with ADHD and autism and I would love to know why that is the case in the Ireland of 2024.

Travellers are still falling through the cracks in our education system. As I said, the Leas-Chathaoirleach and I were having a discussion about the reduced timetables yesterday. There should be assistance from a doctor. Mr. Hanlon said to Deputy Stanton it is psychological or trauma. Who says that? Not every school has psychological services. That is something the national teachers’ unions are looking for. I am on the education committee as well. In 2012, my nephew was denied access to a school and now he has little or actually no education at all. He was failed by the education system. There are many other children. Ms O'Neill was talking about data. She said the latest around children going to primary school was from 2016, but that is eight years ago. We are talking pilot programmes and collecting more data and information while Traveller children are not being supported to reach their full potential.

I went to Pavee Point just before Christmas. We spoke about the national education strategy. I nearly dropped dead when I found out there was never a national education strategy for members of the Traveller community. That really struck me. I remember saying to Martin Collins that I would have made an assumption there was a strategy to support Travellers in education. I take this opportunity to thank the national and local organisations for the work they have continued to do to ensure Travellers can reach their full potential. Credit is due to Deputy Stanton because he keeps going on about education and the importance of it in this committee, but one of our questions today was how having a homework club on sites can help children, and I did not hear a solution. We have to do up a report and I am wondering from the Department, whether we can we work with local authorities. Is there any solution for homework clubs on all sites to support children to do their homework? I had a group in here two years ago from Tipperary and one of my colleagues, Anne Marie Quilligan, was doing a placement there. She was saying to me she had never seen so much poverty or racism when it comes to Traveller children within the education system. She also came across cases in Cork where Traveller students aged 16 and 17 were having colouring-in for their homework. Again, 31% of Traveller children go on to complete the leaving certificate. What kind of Ireland are we living in? This is our education system in 2024.

This is not me attacking anybody personally. I want that to be extremely clear. I am sitting here and thinking of my child who has dreams, but I was once a child who had dreams. Surely to God, John Collins in the Gallery had dreams when he was just a child. We are expected to go on and work in Traveller organisations or go on and be the Traveller Senator - to go on and be just people who work with and for our own community. When my child grows up and if she reaches her potential and becomes a doctor like she wants to, does she just operate on Travellers? The Leas-Chathaoirleach and I were talking about it yesterday. Our new Taoiseach spoke about how every child in Ireland should had the same equality of opportunity. I am sitting here as a Senator who happens to be a member of the Traveller community and I woke up this morning knowing children in the halting site I came out of are on reduced timetables because they are bold. I know their mothers and fathers before them did not get equality of opportunity within the education system. I can see that poverty and disadvantage keep going around and around on the halting sites. That is absolutely unacceptable in today’s society.

The 31% figure is unbelievable. What happens when they are aged 16? That is the question. What happens when a Traveller child is 16? When I was 16 I got one or two nasty comments to me in secondary school. While I had an overall good experience, I had nasty comments like “Why aren’t you off getting married?” and those stereotypes that unfortunately professional teachers still have today. That is changing, along with training and education for teachers and, as Deputy Stanton said, having members of the Traveller community in the teaching profession. Traveller education was cut by 86% in 2011 and those cuts have not been reversed. There has been little or nothing put in place for Travellers since that cut.

We have answers. We have the Yellow Flag programme. We have organisations working with schools on the ground giving schools information and solutions, more importantly, but how do we implement those solutions? We have actions from our previous committee and none of them have been implemented. We have the Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill that – no disrespect as I am on the education committee – the Minister, Deputy Foley, keeps kicking down the road.

That Bill would be beneficial not only to the Traveller community, but to all students. I apologise that I cannot speak for too long because my lung collapsed two weeks ago. I ask the witnesses to respond on some of the points I have made.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I ask for a response from the Department.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

Certainly.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

That testimony was incredibly powerful and goes to the nub of the issue. I respect that we have been given a lot of figures here today, but the figure that tells all is that of the very low completion rate in school. Until that is equal for all, we are failing.

I noticed that there are 8,309 students in primary schools and 3,370 in secondary schools. Unless there has been a huge demographic shift, because primary school is eight years long and secondary school is six years long, one would expect that there would be 8,000 children in the secondary schools, give or take. Yet, there are 3,370 of them there. Therefore, from the time they go into secondary school, there is continuous attrition. I take it that before they bail out of school they have already half fallen out of the system. The witnesses might address the points that Senator Flynn raised, which I think are very important. She has an advantage over us, which is that she has walked the walk, lived the experience and fought her way through the system. It should not be a question of fighting one's way through the system.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

Yes, I agree completely. There may be some remarks I will hold until Senator Flynn returns. We will try to take them-----

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Maybe we will let Senator Joe O'Reilly come in. That will give Senator Flynn an opportunity to hear the witnesses' replies when she comes back in. Would that be okay with Ms O'Neill?

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

Yes, absolutely.

Senator Joe O'Reilly

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for the opportunity. As he said, the testimony or statement made by Senator Flynn trumps or transcends anything any of us might say. I am a former teacher and taught a specific Traveller class in my day. I agree with my colleague, Deputy Stanton, who said that over the months and years education is a huge key to opening the windows of wonder, if we want to be clichéd, to create opportunity and change lives. After the material comforts, such as food and shelter, education is the next and biggest critical issue. I do not think there is any argument about that.

I remember from some of these debates in the past that bullying was one of the things to which Traveller children and parents attributed their non-participation or rate of attrition, to use the Leas-Chathaoirleach's term. Forgive me if this has been addressed. I presume the witnesses have addressed many issues, but I could not be on time to the meeting because of other commitments. Bullying was a huge issue. I understand it is now the case that every school must implement a mandatory bullying programme. Please tell me if I am wrong. Could the representatives from the Department confirm that? To what extent is it affecting attrition?

As there is less of a nomadic culture now than there had been traditionally, that should be adversely affecting attrition. It should be helping in that regard, and I presume it is helping. I got the impression that homework clubs are crucial. At a meeting of my parliamentary party yesterday evening, we were speaking about about hot school meals, among other issues. It was never my experience that Traveller children went to school hungry. There was a very big emphasis on making sure that they had proper food and lunch. Could the representatives from the Department tell me what they know about that? Hot school meals are now in place in DEIS schools and the programme is now expanding to other schools. Homework clubs are crucial. Home-school liaison teachers and so on might help to get the parents over their cultural difficulties. When I was young - a time that is becoming a little bit more historic by the day - there was a culture and a fear among parents, particularly around young women, that it may result in them becoming single mums, etc. A crucial factor is alleviating fears among parents, and homework clubs are crucial to that.

Despite what Senator Flynn said - and all her points remain valid - I got the impression from listening to the speaker who is sitting on my immediate right that the numbers have improved considerably and there is a considerable improvement in the number staying in school and continuing in education to completion. I got the impression that there has been a great improvement in completion. It sounded to me as though it is remarkably better than the last time I heard these figures.

I will not go on about retention. In summary, the home-school liaison aspect is critical. Regarding the bullying issue, I would be interested in all the responses of the representatives. That was an issue. There is an ignorance, for want of a better term. I do not mean that in a pejorative sense; I mean it in a good way. In the past, there was a lack of awareness among parents regarding what secondary school meant. That was a problem and maybe the home-school liaison teams can help them to get over that. Homework clubs are crucial and the figures are improving. Could the witnesses respond to some of those points? I thank them very much. I will leave it at that, but if something arises later, I can come back in.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I ask Ms O'Neill to respond first to Senator Flynn and then to Senator Joe O'Reilly.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I thank Senator Flynn very much for those comments. The first thing I will say to her on behalf of my colleagues, and I think everyone in the Department, is that the dreams she spoke of for her four-year-old are also our dreams for her four-year-old. When we think of equality of opportunity for children, we are thinking of all children. We really, ardently mean that and I want Senator Flynn to know that. Sorry. Excuse me for one second.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

I would like to echo what Ms O'Neill is saying. I see some familiar faces in the Gallery as well. I have been privileged to be part of the consultation processes that we have been involved in. Ms Waterhouse and I have been at quite a number of them. The stories we hear are harrowing and it really does impact on us. It drives us on so that we say that we are not going to wait for another seven years. I have stated at a number of the consultations that we absolutely must have this strategy, the implementation plans and the measures that go with those implementation plans. I know Senator Flynn echoes that, as do her colleagues in the Traveller movements. It is really important for us that we get under the hood of some of this stuff. Some of the questions Senator Flynn has asked this morning have been very useful to us because we hear about things and ask why they are that way. We ask about the reason behind it. Then, we ask about where the solutions are. We are trying to move things on. It is all grand to have an implementation plan, but this is a matter of what is going to make a difference on the ground.

Senator Eileen Flynn

It is the lack of implementation. I believe in fairness. I believe we are all in politics for the right reasons and that we work in NGOs for the right reasons. We start off on a good footing and we want better equality of opportunities for all children. However, we genuinely need the political will to implement the things that already exist and we already have.

The community is disheartened at the moment between issues of accommodation, health and the lack of Travellers being employed. People say that if you cannot see it, you cannot be it. I remember one of my first interviews when I was appointed a Senator by the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin. It was with Miriam O'Callaghan, who is a great inspiration for women in this country, and she said to me that if you see it, you can be it. I remember thinking that I was actually very lucky. We probably will not see it again in my time, although I hope we do. I was that extremely lucky person who got to see it and be it. Not everyone will have that. For someone who lives on a halting site and has no water in the morning and cannot get an appointment with a doctor or get equal access to services, it all interlinks.

Paulo Freire says the key to getting out of poverty is education. The focus of this committee is on the small wins. In education, there are a few small wins that we can get by the end of this committee’s term, like the Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill, reduced timetables and working with local authorities to try to support homework clubs for Traveller children. We are not looking for all of the answers today. We are reminding the Department that we are still failing Traveller children, unfortunately, and we do not want to do that as individuals. We need political will and we need to implement the answers that we already have as a committee.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

Thank you. My apologies. I was slightly overcome but I have recovered now. The Senator raised a number of very important points and we will try to address them sequentially as much as we can. The Senator thanked the local organisations. It is fair for us to say that we believe we have built an excellent relationship with many of those organisations. At the stage we are at in consultations on the Traveller and Roma strategy, we are going to see their voices coming through very strongly in that strategy. They have really informed the thinking and the direction of policy in that respect. I was recently with the Irish delegation in Geneva when we were reporting on our obligations under the economic, social and cultural convention. In my discussions there with members of the Traveller movements and organisations, one of the things they said was that they were happy to see that we were moving more rapidly than previously in that direction. It is important for us to acknowledge that and to note that while the pace was not always perhaps as fast as it might have been, we are very confident in the direction we are taking now.

I will move to some of the specific points raised by the Senator. A number of people referred to homework clubs. We gave some information on homework clubs. We can do that again. One of the things we did not mention is that homework clubs are funded by the Department through the school completion programmes. Schools have a great deal of autonomy in these areas to decide what will work for them, and to pivot and move in that regard. Separate from those, there are other organisations providing homework clubs through the family resource centres and other places which are not funded by or under the remit of this Department. However, they are also an important part of the jigsaw. It might be worth capturing those because there are many of them and they do not fall within our data and information. That probably also answers Deputy Stanton's and Senator O’Reilly’s points.

Senator Flynn talks about the concerns of students experiencing racism, bullying and so on. That is anathema to us in schools. We do not want to see that ever happening in a school. No child should ever experience that, no matter what their background. It is a question of how we intend to address that in the strategy, and it falls under the recommendations from the committee as well. It is a matter of initial teacher education and continuous professional development. Again, under Cineáltas, those are specific actions that we are looking at with regard to how are going to implement and make sure the teachers get the training and support they need, but it is also about building the whole school community awareness within a school, which, again, is part of Cineáltas. What we are looking at currently is the development of those anti-bullying guidelines under Cineáltas. They will be coming out shortly and there will be a training programme for schools in respect of that. Specifically, racist bullying will fall under that and there will have been an input from the Traveller and Roma communities in respect of it.

I will move to retention shortly. The Senator spoke about funding for Traveller education and we mentioned a little about the policy direction. When the Senator speaks about children and their aspirations, for us, in education one of the best ways to ensure that everybody has equality of opportunity is inclusion. Therefore, funding has been put together. There is no longer segregated provision or segregated funding, but the overall funding for education has increased and the overall funding for targeted programmes like DEIS has increased. In the context of the figures we gave earlier, we are seeing that there are many more children who are Travellers now receiving the supports of DEIS schools than there were before because we have expanded the DEIS programme. As Ms Waterhouse said, we have specifically targeted post-primary schools to make retention better and we have put home school community liaison into those schools to try to ensure that we expand that. They were not DEIS schools but there were large numbers of Traveller children attending.

Senator Eileen Flynn

At a launch on poverty day last year, I raised the issue of education and the need for more home school liaison teachers. I know the importance of the home school liaison teacher from when I was coming up through school, whether it was getting that bar of chocolate or cup of tea, or having someone you could talk to. It was what really supported me to come through the education system. I was a young girl who had just lost her mother and I had a lot of complications with health. For many young Travellers, we are talking about complex needs. Again, we know the importance of home school liaison officers but they have to be home school liaison teachers who are not afraid to go out and bring in Traveller children and work with Traveller parents. I would be in support of more home school liaison teachers who work with and for Traveller children.

We spoke earlier about complex needs when it comes to Travellers. That could be accommodation or health, and I know what those needs are. Again, it is having that wraparound support in the school, like the home school liaison teacher, who is not just for settled children. To a certain extent, it requires a little more from teachers to go out because there is the fear of the unknown when going on the sites and interacting with people. Therefore, it is very important to support home school liaison teachers.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

We had a meeting yesterday with our adviser group on DEIS and we had a long conversation about the importance of home school liaison and exactly what the Senator is saying, in particular the important role it plays for many children. That is why we have expanded the programme to take in those schools and to support schools. Ms Waterhouse may have something to add.

Ms Kate Waterhouse

In the past couple of years, through dormant accounts funding, the Tusla education support service has been able to provide additional and quite specific training for home school community liaison officers to support their being able to work better with Traveller and Roma parents and migrant families. They held a couple of symposiums for third and fourth year HSCLs, who got training on unconscious bias and got a chance to share skills, innovative methodologies, good practice and successful experiences they have had in maximising attendance, participation and retention. They have had motivational interview training that helped them to support vulnerable families.

They have had motivational interview training, which helps them to support vulnerable families, and they also continue to expand the My Child My Vision programme, which has a particular emphasis on group facilitation involving seldom-heard parents. In December 2023 and in February 2024, they had development days where they came together again to share good practice and their experiences of working with Traveller and Roma families, so there is that extra bit of support for HSCL co-ordinators in that context.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

It is also important to mention the DEIS funding review. Ms Cullen is better placed to speak to that but we have invited the OECD to come in and examine the DEIS model of allocation, at how we allocate resources to DEIS schools. Following on from that, we will be looking at a new funding model for DEIS. We have schools such as the ones we are currently discussing that have additional home school liaison and we know the value of that. We are looking at the resource allocation model across DEIS because we have brought so many more schools into the DEIS programme. While this is not specific to the Traveller community, we have massively expanded the number of Traveller children benefiting from supports such as the school completion programme and HSCL because they are now in DEIS schools that were not previously DEIS schools.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

The OECD review is actually broader than DEIS, in fact. What we are trying to look at is how we support children at risk of education disadvantage in all schools. We know there are children in all schools that struggle. It is quite a wide look at the funding resources that we are putting in, as well as at how we are using that funding. We are also looking at the programmes themselves, like the HSCL and the school completion programme, which work very closely together. What is very challenging with the HSCL at the moment is that, as it is currently defined, the liaison person must be a teacher - on secondment for five years - but as members are probably aware, we have a teacher supply issue at the moment. One of the challenges in the consultation work we are doing is determining the features of the HSCL programme that really work and whether there are ways to bring together the services that we have on the ground in a better way, that makes really good use of those resources to support the children. The Star project, which is also being evaluated currently, is looking at what training people need, whether they are working on home school liaison or on school completion, to have the confidence to go out to sites and into homes because that is huge and is very different for teachers. The other aspect is that sometimes parents do not want to come to meetings that are held in the school because they never want to cross the door of a school again. It is about trying to inform all of the practice around the issues and that is what we are delving into right now.

I can talk a little more about the different funding streams if members are interested.

Senator Eileen Flynn

I am interested in hearing more about reduced timetables and health assessments. As a member of the education committee, I am aware that there are some children who must be on a reduced timetable because it is better for them and their ability to learn and take in information. However, there are too many Traveller children on reduced timetables, unfortunately. Many parents believe their child is on a reduced timetable because he or she is considered bold; it is because of behaviour. I am also interested in hearing more about delays in diagnosing Traveller children who have ADHD and autism.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I will ask Mr. Hanlon to respond on that but, on reduced school days, the purpose of developing the guidance was to ensure that schools understood their obligations and that parents understood the rights of their children and how reduced timetables are supposed to be used. We are very clear that they are only to be used in a manner that is limited, appropriate and absolutely necessary, in line with the Department's rules and in the best interests of the child. We are in a fairly new phase of this because the guidelines are not very old yet. We are seeing a change in behaviour and a change in the use of reduced timetables that is more child-centred. That is the whole purpose of having the new guidelines in place and that is why we are dedicating time and resources to following up with schools to make sure that they understand how and when reduced timetables are to be used, and that parents understand the purpose of them as well. The guidelines were introduced because of what the Senator is talking about, to some degree. We have to ensure that schools understand what reduced timetables are for and that they are used appropriately.

Mr. Frank Hanlon

I would echo what Ms O'Neill is saying. I thank the Senator for her question. We have spoken previously about reduced school days and it is great that we have the data now. It is apparent, as she said, that the percentage of Traveller children on reduced school days is slightly higher than the rest of the school population.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am sorry for interrupting, but will Mr. Hanlon give us the figures again please? There is a figure here of 1,044. What is that referring to exactly?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

There was a total of 1,044 children across the whole school system for whom Tusla received a notification that they were going onto a reduced timetable.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Is that 1,044 Traveller children?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

No, that is all children and of those, 97 were Travellers.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

For comparative purposes, would a fair percentage of the other children be in special schools?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

That is correct.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

They might have physical disabilities, significant intellectual disabilities and so on. Is that correct?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

Yes. Part of the reporting process is that the school indicates whether the child has special educational needs. A total of 684 of the 1,044 children have been reported as having special educational needs.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

What would be very useful for us would be a comparison of like with like. Nobody here would argue about a child with high dependency levels or special educational needs, as long as it is equal to all, but given the figures, it appears that there has been a dramatic drop in the number of children on short days since this reporting process started. Is there any evidence of that?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

We do not know. Hopefully, we will know soon but I suspect there has been a drop. Previously, we did not know what the figures were but anecdotally, it was happening. The key issue is the consent aspect because before these guidelines were introduced, parents did not have to give consent for a reduced timetable.

Senator Eileen Flynn

It is really important that we look at the positives too and I would say that Traveller parents are more aware of reduced timetables, have more information on them and know that they can intervene. It is important to acknowledge that. I hope that when we get the next report, we will see that the figures have dropped. When we talk about children with additional needs or complex needs, that also includes Traveller children. We are saying that a certain percentage of the total is just Traveller children but within the cohort of children with special or additional needs, there are also some Travellers.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Are they double-counted?

Mr. Frank Hanlon

No. They have to choose one or the other. For instance, of the 97 Traveller children, we know that seven of them are in special schools so obviously we know that they have special educational needs. The 97 Traveller children are all of those children who identified as being from a Traveller or Roma background who were notified to Tusla as being on reduced school days, regardless of whether they had special educational needs. However, these are the children who have been notified to Tusla by the schools but, as clearly outlined in the guidance, if there is any suspicion of misuse, or of this happening without going through the appropriate procedures, we urge people to contact Tusla or the Department about it. We need to know about it, if that is what the Senator Flynn hearing.

Senator Eileen Flynn

We had a meeting with the Department in November, which was very good.

I left it feeling so energised, that the Department was trying its best in respect of equal opportunities for members of the Traveller community in the education system.

I have had mothers come up to me in Labre Park halting site to tell me that their child is on a reduced timetable and that Tusla does not have anything to do with it, and that report has not even gone to Tusla. As I said earlier, what really happens is that it is the teacher who makes the decision on whether the child is involved in class. Children are on a reduced timetable and the teacher decides they are on it for a month or a week and the parents see it as a punishment. This action by the Department is something and, as Mr. Hanlon said, we will not know if it is working for another wee while. It is important that we keep pushing it, however, and that we say it is not acceptable from the Department of Education.

Mr. Frank Hanlon

The last thing I will say on it is that we will be working closely with our inspectorate who go out and visit schools and with Tusla itself in terms of ensuring that it is being done for the right reasons. It absolutely should not be a punishment. We are so clear about that. The majority of schools know that, etc. We would be open to hearing more about some of the examples the Senator is talking about whenever it suits her.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

What we need to ensure is that this practice is clamped down on because sometimes there is a perception that Traveller children cannot compete like with like. Obviously, when a person is from a Traveller background, he or she is nearer to disadvantages in accommodation. I will come back to that in a minute. I will mention the education of the parents. There are a few very educated parents who can give more help with homework. There is an expectation on parents. There are out-of-school activities that children from better off backgrounds can get involved in and so on.

I will always remember one thing that struck me really forcibly. I was visiting a halting site about an accommodation issue and I was in a caravan. There was a young lad of primary school age doing his homework in the caravan. I could not understand how he was continuing to do the homework quietly in the corner with all of us talking around him. I certainly could not have done it. I just could not get my head around it. I went over and started talking to him and asked if I could look at the homework. He was doing the kind of fairly standard mathematics a kid of ten or 11 would do. I started checking and everything was perfect. It was perfectly neat and correct. This child was inherently very clever, but look at the huge disadvantages he faces. That is why this committee is focusing so much on the accommodation issue. That is very important, however, because the spectrum of inherent ability among the Traveller community is the same. In my view, however, that has not always been the perception society has had and even that the education system has had.

I dealt with a case many years ago when I was Minister. A parent who was Traveller woman came to me - no anecdote might be appropriate, but I think this is a little bit more than an anecdote - and asked whether her child had a right to learn Irish. I said, "What?". I asked her what she said. She asked whether her child had a right to learn Irish. Most people will tell us they do not want their child to learn Irish. I was Minister with responsibility for the Gaeltacht at the time. I said that, of course, everybody has a right and that, in fact, it is a core subject in the curriculum. Obviously, somebody in the system decided that Traveller children would have no use for Irish.

I accept there is very good work going on in the Department. I am not trying to say the Department is in any way part of this attitude, but there is or has been - it is a thing we have to open up - a pervasive view that full education through secondary school and the same opportunities if people want to go on to third level is not a realistic aspiration for everybody. Everything we are all trying to do here to kill that is so vital. We have been given a very detailed brief by the Department. I will be suggesting that we discuss that brief at a private meeting, go through it in detail and come back to the Department because it is very useful and we need to look at it in detail ourselves.

One issue was raised. I was responsible for the revitalising areas through planning, investment and development, RAPID, programme, which were the really disadvantaged areas in the State based on a statistical analysis of disadvantage. One conclusion I came to was that one big differentiator between a child from a more advantaged background and one from a disadvantaged background - this was not focused on Travellers only but people who came from disadvantage - was access to after-school activities, whether it is sports, dancing, music and all those things. I know they are not direct school responsibilities and, therefore, educational responsibilities, but they have to be somebody's responsibility in all this talk and discussion that is taking place. My view is that if children are involved in sport or other disciplined activities, they are more likely when they come to school to buy into the concept of organisation and discipline and they want to learn. Has any work been done to try to see the correlation between educational attainment and after-school, post-school or extracurricular activity? If there are data on that, it would be very useful for us to seek funding from other Departments to make sure that these activities are afforded.

Deputy Stanton wanted to come in.

Deputy David Stanton

I will be very brief as I have to go to another meeting. I thank the officials for being here this morning. I picked up a really sincere approach to this issue. I thank them for that. I support the Vice Chair in what he said with regard to after-school activities and even in-school activities with respect to sport, art, music and so forth in schools, which are all so crucial.

On the issue of restricted timetables, reduced hours, limited days and so forth, has the Department any statistics on the level of suspensions and expulsions with respect to Traveller children? I believe I am correct in saying that any suspensions and expulsions have to be reported to the Department so that it has an overview of how many children are suspended or expelled from schools at any one time.

I know the reduced timetable is one area from the past. Mr. Hanlon mentioned the issue of punishment. I agree with him fully that it should not be used for that purpose. In the past, however, it probably was taken to be a reason for taking that action taken. However, what is used very often for punishment is suspension or expulsion. That whole area needs to be possibly tidied up as well. I am interested to know whether there are any statistics in that area.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I thank the Deputy. With regard to expulsions and suspensions, that is obviously something that is undertaken by a board of management only after a significant procedure. It has to be in line with the school's published code of behaviour and so on. Every school has a code of behaviour it is required to develop. Schools develop that in consultation with parents and pupils of the school. Tusla Educational Support Service, TESS, is currently developing new guidelines and a code of behaviour for schools. I would have to double check, but I believe that will be coming out later this year. We do have data on the number of expulsions within schools. The data I have here for 2022 is 85 within post-primary schools and seven in primary schools. That data is not disaggregated. It does not have ethnicity data. That is not something Tusla Educational Support Service collects. It is my understanding that we do not have a marker for that.

I do not have any specifics on whether there are Traveller children included in that number or if so, how many.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

Yes, and we are working with TESS and Tusla itself, the big organisation of which TESS is only a small part, on the data strategy piece. There is a lot of information we would like to be able to have on the Traveller, Roma or migrant background in order that we can properly target and support our policy decisions with better data. We are working on that but TESS does not have that disaggregated piece at this stage.

Deputy David Stanton

Quite often, it is the system that has ultimately failed the child when that happens, when the child has to be expelled or suspended. The system has failed the child, not the other way around. On that and where the system might not work to meet the child's needs, can the witnesses talk to me about Youthreach and other such programmes that would be adjunct to the mainstream education system, and where, if the systems fails, children can move to a system that might actually meet their needs in a better way?

Ms Gráinne Cullen

Obviously, Youthreach comes under the Department of further and higher education. It does not sit within our Department. It would be in the Solas figures that we mentioned earlier on with regard to trying to track children through. I do not have a lot of detail on it but there is out-of-school provision. There are non-registered schools where they provide a pathway for children who fall out of the mainstream system. There was a review of that out-of-school provision done in the last number of years, and at the moment there is an active group looking an action and implementation plan for the recommendations of that report. That plan is due in the next couple of months as well. That is starting to look at how we can organise that provision better if a child does fall out of school.

Other people say through the consultation that sometimes schools just do not suit the child. There needs to be a pathway for those children. It is maybe not just Youthreach. It is really important. As Youthreach has a funding piece to it too, it can be attractive to the children. It can be a draw out of school, in fact. We are trying to look at those pathways and make sure that what we do have in the out-of-school cohort is well organised, and that children are supported in that too.

Senator Eileen Flynn

The hot meals and the breakfast clubs for children are very much welcomed by the Traveller community. I have a lot of criticism because I can see history keep repeating itself. I know the good work that individuals in the Department of Education and organisations are doing. Again, when that young woman or man reaches the age of 16, what happens? Is that down to poverty? When we were in school, you had the family allowance if you stayed in school until you were 19. I know the Government has resourced that now. Would that be something positive going forward for mothers and fathers who are trying to keep their heads above water too? Maybe having that extra few pounds in the month might support keeping a child in school. That was one of the reasons I stayed in school. That was the reality of it.

As Deputy Stanton has said, I know and can feel the positives from the witnesses here today, in that they want to do good for all children in Ireland, including Traveller, migrant and Roma children. That is really welcome to hear. Financial pressure is a big issue when it comes to children from disadvantaged areas completing school, so I think having the family allowance extended until the child finishes school could be something positive. We will not see the result of that maybe for a year or two but we really need to have solutions where more than 31% of Traveller children go on and get a leaving certificate.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

It might be useful to the committee if I came in here. I apologise to the Leas-Chathaoirleach.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Ms O'Neill can keep going.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

It might be useful to the committee if we point out some of the particular statistics with regard to the retention figures in a further response. A number of people mentioned those. We gave the committee the overall retention figures but we do have that broken down by year so we can see if-----

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

If we are gaining.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

If 100 Traveller students start in first year in 2015, we can see how many make it into junior cycle 1, 2, 3, etc. As regards the out-of-school provision that Ms Cullen was speaking about and that report, the focus in the report - not to give a spoiler alert - is that the Minister has asked the group to look at a number of different aspects. One of the key aspects is retention in schools. At one end of the scale, we have out-of-school provision, which is specific provision. Before you come to that, however, what are we doing to retain children in the schools? The school completion programme is one aspect of that but what other supports are available in schools, how do we ensure they are targeted at children who are most at risk of leaving, and how do we identify those children? For instance, we know from the 2015 cohort of Traveller children - this was given to me as rough stats - that if 100 started, about 90 of them made it to the third year of junior cycle. That is a significant improvement on previous years, but ten of them did not make it that far. Where did they go and what have we supported them with? Then, of the 90 who made it to junior cycle, how many sit the examination? It is a lower number again, and so on, as we go up through the system.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

A child does not attend every day, do all the classes, and then suddenly not sit the exam and leave school. I take it that if a child or student gets through those first three years but does not make it, that the history has been of absenteeism, non-engagement and so on, and that it is a progression. Then, when they come to exams, they balk and decide to leave school. Everything else in the world is so much more technical now, and whether you go to become an electrician or whatever, the complexities of most jobs now require knowledge of literacy, mathematics and so on. That is a huge disadvantage. It would be useful for us to get any feel for this, and also a feel for the progression. Are we gaining ground or losing it? We are running short on time and I am due to ask a question in Questions on Policy or Legislation in the Dáil as well.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

We are certainly gaining ground. We can see that and track that data.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It might be in the data we have got in the report. If it is not, Ms O'Neill might give us that.

Senator Eileen Flynn

Before the meeting closes, I want to say that next Thursday, we will be joined by Travellers in the Seanad Chamber for a meeting of this committee. The meeting will cover the subjects scrutinised by this committee, including education, employment, accommodation and health, including mental health. I would love the Departments to look in and see the line-up of speakers that we have - young women and men, older women and men from our community, who have the best of potential. They will see on the floor of the Seanad next week the skills and talents that are there in our community, the potential that we have as a community, and how we always valued education. We will continue to value education if given the opportunities to go on and be doctors, nurses or solicitors and have employment after education as well. I would encourage that, as well as us going away and doing our homework, the Department will look at, listen to and take notes on some of the young people next week who will be delivering when Travellers take to the floor of the Seanad next week. I just wanted to say that before we close.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The is fine, Senator. I have just a few quick points-----

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

May I just respond to that briefly?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Yes, go ahead.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

I thank Senator Flynn very much for the invitation. When it was mentioned earlier, I was hoping we would get one, so I thank the Senator. We will certainly ensure that there is representation from the Department. We are listening avidly to the Traveller community through all the consultations we have had. I was very struck when I had lunch at the Cineáltas launch with a number of young Traveller girls from Cork.

They asked me a lot about my job. Two of them told me it sounded it really boring, and one of them told me she was definitely going to boot me out of it and take it in due course, so I look forward to that day.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I turn to a specific group of Travellers living on halting sites. I will go back to what I said about the child trying to do homework in the caravan. That was the only room in the house aside from very small bedrooms. Have there been any discussions, or is there any forum where discussions could take place with local authorities, about local authority halting sites to make sure there would be a community room available on every one of those sites for after-school clubs? It is fine to have them in the schools. For most children, and most Traveller children, that will be the optimum solution and it keeps children together. However, when children on halting sites go home there is a need for a space for them. Would the Department consider that through NTRIS or whatever? To me, that is a vital part of education. It is not all in the classroom. There is the opportunity to read, to access books and so on. As I said, children on halting sites have a particular challenge that we need to overcome to give them equal opportunity. It was mentioned that ten additional home-school liaison co-ordinators are now supported. This is being funded by the Dormant Accounts Fund. I do not know if the Dormant Accounts Fund has changed dramatically, but that used to be approximately three-year funding. Do I take it that that funding is time limited? Can we rest assured that it will not be time limited in terms of liaison officers? One of the problems with those time-limited funds is the question of what happens when the fund runs out. To put it in simple English, will it be mainstreamed? Home school liaison and all of these extra supports are absolutely vital if we are to try to level the playing pitch.

A review of the STAR project was mentioned. Is that completed?

Ms Gráinne Cullen

It is in its last stages. Ms Waterhouse probably has the date.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am interested in the date of publication.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

It is imminent.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I know, but getting the first 90% of most reports is fairly fast. With no disrespect to everybody in the system, getting the last 10% always seems to take forever.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

We are confident.

Ms Kate Waterhouse

We are already debating a draft of the final report. We have already had an interim report and circulated that to a research advisory group, which we have, and that includes Traveller and Roma representatives. It is very close. It feels already completed.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Will it be within a month or two?

Ms Kate Waterhouse

To publication?

Ms Gráinne Cullen

We will receive it and then submit it to the Minister. We have a plan-----

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Ministers are not that slow. If I knew the Minister had it I would have a word with her.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

We would like to look at the suite of documents we want to publish at the same time, when we are working towards the Traveller education strategy. We have also to be cognisant of the NTRIS strategy because that is delayed and looks like it will come out more or less at the same time as our education strategy. There are a number of things.

Senator Eileen Flynn

I think we are launching NTRIS on 25 April.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

There is a steering group on that coming up pretty quickly. It is moving along at approximately the same pace we are now with the education strategy. It looks like both will be at the end of quarter 2 in terms of development. We want to look at how best to showcase what has gone into the development of the Traveller education strategy, which would include the STAR evaluation.

Ms Cliodhna O'Neill

That is along with a lot of other reports and research.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

I think we listed them in what we have given to the committee, but if not we can give a list again. There is a range of reports. We have been doing research through the consultation, plus the literature review of the previous material. One thing the Traveller community said to us when we began this work approximately summer last year was that so much is already done. We do not need to go back and reassess what the issues are.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I agree.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

We know what they are. The committee knows what they are. There are reports. Rather than going back again we undertook a literature review, which then informs the strategy. There is a lot of richness in the work that has been done with the communities. Senator Flynn mentioned that the Traveller organisations have been generous with their time in working with us. They are running the consultations. The last one is in Cork this morning. It has very much been a collaborative approach.

Senator Eileen Flynn

My stepsister is a youth worker in Exchange House Ireland. She was saying that the Department was in there a few weeks ago with some young children.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

This has been a useful exchange. The Department and the committee are trying to do the same thing. This must be the most-reported community, but it is not reports we need. We need to come up with actions that make continual, measurable change on an incremental basis until we get to the goal of equality. We also realise that this is only one part. Higher education is a part. Work experience is a huge part as is peers going into various professions and being able to go back and explain to young people that there are opportunities out there. There are many parts to this and we recognise that. The committee in its reports is focusing on doable actions all of the time - what is urgent, what can be done and what results can be achieved. We do not believe we will solve every problem in the world but we really want to try to solve, or press strongly and monitor the progress on, specific issues we feel will make a tangible and incremental difference to improve things. I thank the witnesses for the empathy they have shown today, and for the comprehensive replies they have given. It has been very useful.

Ms Gráinne Cullen

I reiterate the thanks, and as usual we have learned a lot by listening to the feedback from the committee. The homework club has not really come up through the consultations so it is really interesting to hear that, and to understand it is not just about the homework club and about the literacy and numeracy of the parent, and the space on the halting site or elsewhere. It has been useful.

Senator Eileen Flynn

Approximately six months ago I was talking about extra activities for Travellers. A young girl wanted to start Irish dancing, but did not have the money to do it. I asked myself who I could contact to get this child the support to go into Irish dancing. Again, I signposted the mother back to the local community. Can we maybe look at special additional funds for Travellers who want to be part of football clubs or things like Irish dancing? A young Traveller child may want to be a ballerina and should have the opportunity to do it. Cost should not be a problem. I think that was an interesting point the Deputy made earlier.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

One thing we did previously was to give €100,000 to every area implementation team under the RAPID programme. It was not a Traveller-specific programme, but it obviously included areas where there was a high proportion of Travellers. The idea was that it was controlled by the community representatives as well as the rest of the members. There was kind of a double sign off. The whole committee had to sign off, but it had to be separately signed off by the community representatives. The idea was that if there were a band in an area, it would have the money to buy equipment or uniforms or whatever was needed, or if there were different activities and so on. It would be interesting to get the view of people involved in education, even if it were only qualitative and not necessarily quantitative.

Is one way to address to whether children perform better if they have access to a reasonable amount of organised after-school activity through discretionary funds? This is where the Dormant Accounts Fund comes in. The funding was provided from it and we can do things with Dormant Accounts Fund money that we cannot do with mainstream money. It was mainly not meant to substitute for mainstream funding, which is unfortunately what happened to national lottery funding over time; it was meant to go into the kind of things we would not normally do with mainstream funding. That is one way we might be able to look at this. It would be interesting if the witnesses could give us feedback on the correlation between performance in school and activity out of school, even if it is only anecdotal, because often that often gives one a good flavour for things.

With that, I appreciate the witnesses' attendance and their listening to all the points we made and responding in such a comprehensive way. I thank members for their contribution.

I now adjourn the committee until 11 a.m. on Thursday, 18 April 2024 which we will have a public meeting in the Seanad Chamber entitled Give Travellers the Floor. With that, cuirim an cruinniú seo ar athló.

The joint committee adjourned at 12.31 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Thursday, 18 April 2024.