COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 24 Nov 2011

Special Report 74 of the Comptroller and Auditor General Chapter 2 - Monitoring School Attendance

Mr. Jim Breslin(Secretary General, Department of Children and Youth Affairs) and Ms Clare Daly(Chief Executive Officer, National Educational Welfare Board) called and examined.

Chairman

Before we begin I remind members and witnesses to turn off their mobile phones, as interference from mobile phones affects the sound quality of the transmission of the meeting. I advise witnesses that they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are to give to this committee. If they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given, and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, people should not criticise nor make charges against a Member of either House, a person outside the House or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Members are reminded of the provisions within Standing Order 158 that the committee should also refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government or Minister of the Government or the merits of the objectives of such policies.

I welcome Mr. Jim Breslin, Secretary General of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, and ask him to introduce his officials.

Mr. Jim Breslin

On my right is Ms Moira O'Mara, head of corporate affairs in the Department; on my left are Mr. David Burke from Pobal, which administers the child care schemes on our behalf, and Mr. Gerard Banville, head of finance in the Department.

Chairman

I also welcome Ms Clare Ryan, chief executive of the National Education Welfare Board, and ask her to introduce her officials.

Ms Clare Ryan

Good morning. On my right is Ms Laura Slevin, who is the director of corporate affairs; and on my left is Mr. Dan O'Shea, regional manager of the education welfare service in Munster.

Ms Judith Brady

I am Judith Brady, from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

Chairman

I understand Mr. Breslin and Ms Ryan are new to their tasks. I wish them well in their work and they are very welcome here this morning. I will ask Mr. Buckley, the Comptroller and Auditor General, to introduce, from the 2010 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts, Vote 41, children and youth affairs, chapter 49, child care facilities, and chapter 2 of Special Report 74 of the Comptroller and Auditor General on monitoring school attendance. The full text of Chapters 2 and 42 can be found in the Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General or on the website of the Comptroller and Auditor General at www.audgen.gov.ie.

Mr. John Buckley

The Vote for the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs records a net expenditure of €332 million in 2010. Around half of this went on the early childhood care and education scheme, which replaced the direct early child care payments that had been provided in 2009 and earlier years. Chapter 49 of my annual report sets out some information on the development of the new scheme, which is designed to provide a year of early childhood care and education to children of preschool age. The scheme was in its first year of operation at the point we examined it and matters that still had to be addressed included ensuring that all preschool leaders held the minimum educational standard - in this context, a workforce development plan report found that 40% of the preschool services workforce were below a standard that had to be met by September 2012; and the need to ensure that places funded by the scheme are taken up.

More widely, the chapter examined the development of child care facilities and capacity, on which €560 million was spent in the period 2006 to 2010. The outlay was on funding infrastructure for child care, subventing child care fees for low income families, providing the free preschool year I mentioned already, and paying the administration costs of the programme. Around 25,000 places have been created under the latest capital programme. However, based on an analysis of attendance records for services supported under the national child care investment programme, around 15,000 places have not been taken up. This is after taking account of the impact of the new early childhood care and education scheme on the demand for places. Naturally, that scheme would have had a positive effect on take-up. The report also notes that some 126 child care providers had closed up to the date on which we reported. The capital funding provided to these providers amounted to €3.7 million. The mix of use of the facilities currently in operation is different from that envisaged when the funds were allocated and paid. Many parents have switched their use of the facilities to a part-time or sessional basis. In addition, some 50% of places cater for children in the three to four years age group compared with a planned 20%.

The challenges for the future appear to be: to ensure that as much of the infrastructure as possible is maintained in use for the purpose for which it was created; to improve the information maintained so that the State has a clearer picture of how the range of assistance it provides is translating into child care places; to improve transparency and to be in a position to demonstrate value for State outlay following a switch in assistance away from direct payments to parents to the provision of funding to child care services; to address the resourcing of child care facilities in accordance with preset standards as well as ensuring the quality of the education provision as part of the new scheme; and to examine the potential for better co-ordination and standardisation of inspection processes.

The second report falling for consideration today relates to the monitoring of school attendance. This is also an area in transition with plans to co-ordinate the services provided by the National Educational Welfare Board, the home school community liaison service, the school completion programme and the visiting teacher service for Travellers. The report noted that for the last year for which we reported, approximately 12% of primary students missed 20 or more days with the corresponding rate at secondary level at 17%. The report noted that information based on returns was incomplete with periodic returns sent in by schools only capturing approximately 61% of cases with 20 days or more absence. The number of cases of reported absence of greater than 20 days far exceeds the capacity of the service to respond. Therefore, in recent times there has been a move to a new way of prioritising work which has the following features: preliminary action at school level; a standard referral process; and the drawing up of a plan to address attendance issues after a case planning session involving the student, parents and the school.

At the point of the production of the report, which was finalised in September 2010 and which is now somewhat out of date, the new prioritisation system and the integration of the services involved in work related to school attendance, participation and retention had yet to be bedded in. The chief executive will be in a position to update the committee in this regard.

Mr. Jim Breslin

I have submitted the opening statement in advance and to assist with time I will mention the highlights rather than be exhaustive. The vote before the committee is Vote 41. This is the Vote of the former Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs whose functions have now been subsumed into the new Department of Children and Youth Affairs. This Vote is now retired. In 2010, Vote 41 had a total gross allocation of more than €360 million. As the Comptroller and Auditor General remarked, there are several schemes within the Vote and given today's topics it might be helpful for me to outline briefly the nature of these schemes.

The free preschool year under the early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme was introduced in January 2010. This was after the capital investment which is subject to the Comptroller and Auditor General's chapter. A sum of €154 million was spent on the programme last year. Some 94% of eligible children are participating in the free preschool year. All children now have access to the benefits of early education and quality preparation for school and lifelong learning. The successful introduction of a free preschool year last year at a time of expenditure curtailment more generally was based on a recognition of the social and economic benefits of quality preschool education for all children.

In 2010, some €97 million was spent on the national child care investment programme. Some €52 million of this was spent on the community child care subvention scheme, the purpose of which is to provide a subvention for the child care costs of disadvantaged and low-income parents. A new programme, the child care education and training support, CETS, programme, was introduced in September 2010. This is to provide child care places to qualifying FÁS and VEC trainees. Almost €8 million was spent on this programme in 2010. The programme represents a rationalisation of previous arrangements for child care support offered by training authorities. These are the three main child care support schemes. All were introduced in the period between 2008 to 2010 and all three remain in place.

The Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs spent €46.6 million on youth programmes. While these programmes have a universal focus, there is a particular targeting of disadvantage and €30 million was spent on disadvantaged or at risk young people. Some €26.75 million was spent by the office on a range of programmes under the national children's strategy.

Support for the provision of child care facilities originated during the years of economic progress when growth in the labour market placed considerable pressure on available preschool places. At the start of this period there was considerable underdevelopment in the capacity and quality of the preschool sector. In the period between 1999 and 2000 it was found that more than 13,000 children were on waiting lists for child care facilities, representing 23% of those already attending. The waiting list for children under one year of age was 75% of those attending. Consequently, parents faced considerable difficulties in securing a preschool place while others had no choice but to travel significant distances. The demographic and economic outlook meant this situation would continue to get worse without action being taken.

The then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform secured EU funding to develop a child care infrastructure in Ireland as an equality measure for women. This led to the first major investment programme under the equal opportunities child care investment programme, the EOCP. Some 40,000 places were created under the EOCP between 2000 and 2007. As the EOCP was nearing its conclusion, the demand for child care continued to increase and, in response, the national child care investment programme was announced. This has been the particular focus of the Comptroller and Auditor General's chapter.

The programme was announced in the 2006 budget and a commitment was given in the partnership agreement Towards 2016 to create a further 50,000 child care places under the programme. The approach taken under the EOCP and the NCIP was to encourage the provision of necessary child care facilities while stimulating the market through investment and the commercial sector invested heavily in facilities. Under the national child care investment programme, commercial operators were required to provide 25% in matching funding and were limited to grants of €100,000 or under. In practice, their investment was considerably higher since larger scale facilities would have obtained the majority of their funding from the private sector. Community not-for-profit groups were also encouraged to develop child care facilities under both programmes, especially in disadvantaged and rural areas where commercial investors were less likely to invest.

The demand for child care has declined dramatically during the past three years or so. Take-up of child care places has been affected by reductions in disposable income and especially by the downturn in employment and emigration. The number of females in employment fell by 83,100 during the three years from March 2008 to March 2010. An additional 90,100 males and females with children from that period are now unemployed.

From early 2008, the then Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs recognised the potential implications of the recession on demand for child care and ceased approving further capital projects. Whereas the national child care investment programme was originally planned to provide €357 million in capital and to generate 50,000 places, its curtailment has seen approximately €180 million spent and approximately 25,000 places created.

In order to further protect the existing infrastructure and in line with wider social and economic policy goals, the office also secured the introduction of several new child care programmes, to which I referred earlier. Existing financial supports to parents and providers have been reshaped to directly support the provision of quality preschool education. As outlined earlier, the ECCE programme provides 66,000 children with a free year of preschool education. This programme would not have been possible without the development of a network of locally based preschool facilities during the preceding years.

In looking beyond the current recession adequate child care provision remains key to bringing women into the labour market by means of training and employment. Choice for parents with regard to child care options and quality child care provision to support children's development remain key policy goals. As we recover from the recession, improvement in employment and income levels will likely result in a further take-up of the facilities that have been developed through both private and public investment. I hope the foregoing remarks are of assistance to the committee.

Ms Clare Ryan

My name is Clare Ryan and I was appointed chief executive officer of the NEWB in May of this year. I am extremely pleased to be here today to be able to respond on the progress achieved since the publication in 2010 of Special Report 74 of the Comptroller and Auditor General on monitoring school attendance, to share with it some of the really good things that we are doing in NEWB, some of the challenges that are facing us and some of our future plans.

The Comptroller and Auditor General's report in 2010 offered a clearly defined agenda which was embraced by the NEWB. This coincided opportunely with the extended remit of the service to include at the time the visiting teacher for Travellers service, home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme, and offered the opportunity of redeveloping an integrated service model which would respond to the complexity of issues that impact on attendance, participation and retention. This complexity requires deep and sustained system interventions.

Since 2010, we can report a number of positive developments which undoubtedly reflect an enhanced model of service. To the end of October this year through the EWS service we have supported in excess of 10,000 children. We are pleased that the changes we have made since 2009 have resulted in this improvement and this will further strengthen as we continue to develop and refine a model of integrated service to children and families, incorporating the extended NEWB in an agreed framework working on attendance, participation and retention.

We can report that there has been the highest annual attendance returns ever to the NEWB from schools in 2009, 97% from primary and 96% from post-primary. In 2009-10, 69,471 fewer days than 2008-09 have been lost through student absences, on a percentage comparison. The numbers of student days lost, taking primary and post-primary schools together, is running at 6.8% and is at the lower end for the five year period 2005-10.

The percentage of students who sit the leaving certificate overall has risen by more than 6% to 87.7% in 8 years. These figures demonstrate an important return on the State's investment. As we know, for every child diverted from early school leaving and towards higher educational achievement there are considerable long-term social and economic benefits.

We now have a management team which is concentrating on how we make a difference to the lives of children in Ireland with our shared resources. In terms of staff, the integration project has been firmly centred upon the requirement to build a unified education support service guided and informed by research evidence, policy and the experience of teachers, parents, students, service staff and communities. We know from our consultation workshops that people are passionate about the principle of One Child, One Team, One Plan and want to make it a reality. The board is committed to implementing a unified service of support for the academic year 2012-13.

In terms of the integration process, the memorandum of agreement between Department of Education and Skills and NEWB is now the bedrock on which all planning for the future is based. This is fully understood by the board, management team and all of us, which gives clarity about the scope and boundaries of integration. There is a commitment to using integration to achieve better outcomes for children, families and schools.

There has been a successful transitioning of personnel from the Department of Education and Skills to NEWB and of the NEWB to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. There has been positive engagement with key stakeholders in order to secure agreement for the approach to service redesign and restructuring.

The final stages of a detailed implementation plan are in train. These include practice guidelines for all staff on a model of integrated practice; the design of continuous professional development to support integrated practice; and the bedding in of organisation systems including funding guidelines, reporting arrangements, datagathering requirements and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of impact.

During the past two years, in particular, there have been locally based initiatives which have demonstrated integrated practice working at its best. These include working with care teams in schools to create an environment that is conducive to good attendance and participation; building good relationships with school management and staff to improve integrated working; impressive teamwork by home school, school completion and the education and welfare service; a number of positive initiatives to encourage pupils' attendance; the targeting of children and tracking their progress; whole community initiatives which have involved other agencies and providers; and group work with parents that will enable them to support not only their children but their peers.

The challenges facing us are principally to do with change processes. It is never easy for people or systems to embrace change, especially when it means that some of the practices, values and principles which they hold dear may have to change in order to create a more efficient and effective service which will produce better outcomes for children, families and schools.

In terms of resources, we live in unprecedented times and we are committed to ensuring that whatever resources are granted to the activities and services of the board that the best possible value is obtained while ensuring that the most marginalised children and families are prioritised. In terms of outcomes, we put children at the centre of everything that we do. While we have developed an outcomes framework for the education and welfare service, this is currently being refined to incorporate the entire service strands of home school and school completion.

For our future plans, we believe that the Department of Education and Skills made a bold and correct move in requiring a single strategic approach to attendance, participation and retention and we can confirm that the organisation is firmly committed to making this deliver for children and families. We are currently developing an integrated pathway for children under a common case management framework. This means that any child who has a need for support from any of the strands of NEWB should in the future receive a seamless service. The new framework will be in place for the new academic year 2012-13.

The board has placed a huge emphasis on re-engaging the commitment and co-operation of schools. My appointment in May of this year, having come from the education sector, is facilitating this process. As an organisation, we are committed to continuing to build and consolidate strong relationships with schools and school communities so that together we can ensure that the absolute entitlement to education is preserved and protected for all children, particularly the most vulnerable.

NEWB has already commenced work on developing, under section 22 of the Education (Welfare) Act 2000, guidelines for schools on the formulation of attendance strategies. The guidelines will act as a support to schools and families in offering clarity around roles, responsibilities and process, as well as offering a description of best practice in terms of ensuring that children remain engaged in the learning system. Attendance at school, which provides the opportunity for each child to participate meaningfully in the educational system, is for the board our raison d’être.

As we know, absenteeism is one of the strongest factors associated with early school leaving and we know through research the enduring outcomes from high levels of poor achievement and absenteeism. We know that even while still in school students who miss large amounts of school time can experience social and emotional costs through alienation from their peers, friends and staff.

We also know that children who leave school early tend not to re-engage with education subsequently and therefore remain at a disadvantage throughout their lives. Combating the issues underlying poor attendance requires concerted action and close collaboration among schools, school support services and other stakeholders involved with children, young people and their families. I am committed to making that happen.

Chairman

Can we have the permission of witnesses to publish both statements and the updated documented submitted to the committee? That is agreed.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I welcome the organisations and their representatives here today. Ms Ryan is the first witness to ever say she was extremely pleased to be here. I hope we meet her expectations.

I congratulate Mr. Breslin on his recent appointment and the foundation of the new Department. I have used crèches and child care and my children have participated in the schemes he described. My children are now on their way into primary school and I am hugely aware of the value of the work the different organisations do and see their impact within my constituency. I thank him for that.

Deputy Anne Ferris will focus on the work of the welfare board. I will discuss some of the points made by Mr. Breslin. Based on his testimony and the material I received, I understand the State correctly created a large amount of infrastructure in child care provision and put in place some very good programmes. The unanticipated radical change in the economy and the huge change in the working patterns of parents, many of whom are now not working, has had a major impact on the take-up of that infrastructure. How would he respond to that summary?

Mr. Jim Breslin

It is fair. It was not just the State that invested in infrastructure. It was a scheme where we tried to create an impetus from the private and community sectors to put facilities in place. In respect of the private sector where the State made grants available, it had to get its own funding in place to do it. It was a bottom-up approach, based on local needs assessments and entrepreneurs and community sector telling us there was a need in their local areas for facilities. They submitted applications and the State at a national level decided as a country we were under provided for in respect of preschools.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I noticed two things from the material and testimony. First, as the issue became known to Mr. Breslin's predecessor in the Department, capital spending was gradually pared back. I also noticed the level of detail in the report received by the committee which showed the high level of decommitment, so to speak, to capital spending, as a percentage of the total allocated moneys. I ask Mr. Breslin to explain the process regarding both of those items.

Mr. Jim Breslin

As regards the first, our last new approvals were in February 2008. At the time we paused any further approvals. This was based on the early signs of the downturn. Some of this is history now but the CSO announced in September of 2008 that the country was in recession as there had been two quarters of negative growth. In February 2008, the last approvals were made and we made no more capital approvals at that stage. We had a total of €85 million on hand of further applications and none of these was approved. In fact, the programme would have been planned to have a further €180 million in approvals. We stopped at that point as the downturn in the economy emerged.

The difficulty in any economic situation is to predict that turn. We did not predict it in 2006 or in 2007 but when we saw the early signs of it I think we then moved promptly to try to close the scheme. There was a great deal of representation at the time from the sector and from the community to ask why we were closing the scheme as the facilities were needed but we held that line until we saw fuller information, fuller figures, emerging during the course of the next year. We then closed the scheme completely and it was wound up. In that sense I think we took account of the emerging information on the economy.

On the issue of decommittals, by their nature-----

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I ask Mr. Breslin to explain the term, "decommittal". It is presented in the report and it is the first time I have seen use of a technique like that in material submitted to us.

Mr. Jim Breslin

When an application is submitted and approved, the funding will be allocated if the application complies with the conditions of the approval. These include key criteria such as a listing of the number of places, the location and the timeframe. If an applicant misses out on those criteria - the timeframe in particular is the most important - it is open to the Department to decide the applicant has breached the terms of the grant and that it will decommit the grant.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

So decommitting could be instigated by either party?

Mr. Jim Breslin

Most of the decommittals are on the community side. A community group might find that it has put a good application together but in the end it is unable to organise it and it might withdraw from the scheme in that case. It would then inform us it is not proposing to proceed. It might take the group a while to decide to decommit as it may have trouble finding a suitable site or there may be legal issues or the need in the local area may have changed due to the passage of time. In that situation, the Department would decommit the grant.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I want to note the recognition of the change in the economic circumstances and the changes that took place in capital spending. The final capital figure expended was about half of the original allocation, in recognition of the circumstances, and this is welcome.

However, I ask Mr. Breslin to explain where the original figure of 50,000 places came from. It seems from reading the report and from what Mr. Breslin has told us that a fair degree of sophistication was involved in the response to what was happening in the economy and in making the appropriate decisions. However, it appears there was a fair bit of lack of sophistication in coming up with the figure of 50,000 in the first place. How did that figure come about?

Mr. Jim Breslin

A number of factors would have fed into both the need for a programme and the size of the programme announced in the 2006 budget. The preceding programme had established 40,000 places and yet issues to do with capacity and demand outstripping supply, inflation in fees for parents trying to access crèches and parents being unable to find a crèche in their immediate local area, continued to be a matter of public anxiety during the course of that period. We were looking at other economic factors. Female participation in the workforce rose by 12% over the preceding 1995 to 2005 period. Over the preceding decade, more females were participating in the labour force and this is a critical contributory factor in the need for child care. At that point, half of all females were participating in the labour force and the figure was particularly strong among the age group who have young children. We had noted this factor over the preceding ten years and we extrapolated that this was a trend likely to continue.

Immigration is another factor. The ten accession countries entered the European Union in 2004 and immigration began. Countries such as Poland have a strong female participation in the workforce along with a strong child care network and this is what these workers expected when working here. Birth rates began to rise with a 7% increase in births in 2006 and continued over the period and the increase was 22% in 2007 and 2008. Economic and demographic factors meant a requirement for more provision of child care. During the period 2005 to 2006, other commentators, both experts and the social partners, expressed the need for more child care places. Somewhat unusually, IBEC and ICTU produced a joint demand for 100,000 places. This all fed into the budget 2006 decision. At the time, the ESRI was forecasting a growth rate of 4% to 5% for the remainder of the decade so budget 2006 and the Towards 2016 partnership agreement committed to a new programme and 50,000 child care places as a target.

The county child care committees, based on local county areas, developed on a bottom-up basis their needs assessment and this validated the overall target figure. It went beyond it when aggregated. In that situation, based on a limited amount of money, we had to explain to them that this would, indicatively, be the type of funding available to a county based on its demography and on the gap in service provision which had been identified. We started to prioritise. This was then overtaken by the downturn.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Within the original figure, what was the allocation to private or public provision or by age group of children?

Mr. Jim Breslin

A total of 56% was to be allocated to community schemes and the remainder was to be allocated to private providers. This relates to the Deputy's question about decommittals. The approvals were at that level. We approved at that ratio. However, the community side started to fail to come to completion while the private providers came through. The actual delivery of the places has been skewed the other way.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Given the capital expenditure, what is the current total number of places unused?

Mr. Jim Breslin

The Comptroller and Auditor General's report deals with this. The occupancy rate is a figure of approximately 80% to 81%. It is important to note that this occupancy is across all facilities and not just those facilities funded under this programme or indeed which have received State resources. The occupancy rate is approximately 20%. Those figures were calculated in June and August of this year so they are very current. One caveat is that June and August are probably not the best two months in which to gauge capacity as parents such as teachers or those working term time are on holidays during the summer. I do not wish to say that the figure is much higher but there is certainly under-capacity in the system at this stage.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General to which Mr. Breslin referred estimates that the current excess capacity is approximately 15,000 places, at a cost of €75 million. Mr. Breslin has explained, credibly in my view, how this came about and how the Department responded to minimising that figure. How will the Department ensure that those places remain so that as and when the economy recovers, that excess capacity does not disappear in the future when that capacity will be needed?

Mr. Jim Breslin

I agree it is a challenge and we are very focused on it. Over the period 2008 to date, we have been trying to reshape how the Department should work with the sector to maintain as much of that capacity as possible. We have taken several initiatives in this regard. The early child care supplement was an allowance of €1,000 per year to the parents of all children in a certain age group, regardless of whether or not the parents availed of centre-based child care. Those with informal caring arrangements, for example, were entitled to the supplement, even though they were not paying crèche fees. As part of the curtailment of public expenditure we have saved money by reshaping that allowance into what is now the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme, under which it is the child care provider, not the parent, who receives the money. In this way we have not only saved money but also targeted reduced resources at the preschools themselves. As a result, some 63,000 children in the relevant age cohort have been put through preschool. As the Comptroller and Auditor General mentioned in his opening statement, this has served as a boost to the sector, helping to retain capacity at an optimum level, albeit not at full capacity.

Other programmes we have reshaped include the child care employment and training support, CETS, scheme which is targeted at trainees. Under this scheme, FÁS and the VECs previously gave a €63.50 weekly allowance to trainees in respect of child care expenses. Again, this allowance was provided regardless of whether or not the recipient availed of formal child care services. We have amended that scheme so that a subvention of €170 per week is paid directly to the crèche in which participants place their child. Again, this encourages centre-based provision. These initiatives are not simply about sustaining the sector; international evidence clearly shows that quality preschool provision for children in this age group is extremely important in readying them for school.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I assume that a challenge of which the Department is conscious is that the child care sector might contract by too much in response to the changes in work force participation to which Mr. Breslin referred.

Mr. Jim Breslin

Yes. There will always be some degree of churn in a sector where, for example, people who provided a facility in their own home, which was not purpose built, may come to a point in their life where they no longer wish to provide that service. There will be a certain level of service contraction arising from that. However, in respect of the types of quality facilities we have put in place under this programme, it is our objective to sustain them through this period. Our success in so doing partly relates to when the upturn comes and the quality of that upturn. It is also a question of ensuring the State resources we are investing in the sector are targeted at encouraging utilisation of these facilities.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I have some concern regarding the ability of the State to track the quality of the child care it is providing, whether through direct funding or via the provision of the various payments to private sector providers to which Mr. Breslin referred. Something that struck me looking through the material for today's meeting is that we have two different organisations involved in this activity, namely, Pobal, which is represented today by Mr. Dan O'Shea, and the HSE. Why are two different organisations involved in monitoring the quality of child care provision?

Mr. Jim Breslin

To clarify, Pobal is represented today by Mr. David Burke.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Apologies.

Mr. Jim Breslin

The Deputy is correct that two organisations are involved. The HSE's involvement predates the State's involvement in the sector through funding places. Many children's participation in crèches and preschools is funded by their parents' own resources, and it is important that parents have some level of reassurance regarding the standards that pertain in these facilities. Just as one should feel reassured in seeking the services of a pharmacist that there is a system for ensuring he or she has the necessary qualifications and that the proper facilities are in place, we must have that infrastructure in place in respect of the preschool sector. The HSE has responsibility in that regard.

As a separate issue, in recent years we have developed several funding programmes based on the provision either of full funding or a subvention in respect of child care placements. In respect of that funding, Pobal is charged with ensuring the State is receiving the required service from providers we have contracted. One aspect of this is the requirement that all providers meet a minimum quality floor in terms of space requirement, hygiene standards and so on. HSE staff inspect the facilities to ensure providers have the required qualifications and that the general approach is child centred and child friendly. The other issue that Pobal monitors is whether providers contracted under the ECCE scheme are providing the specified hours and indicated facilities at the agreed price, without charging top-ups to parents.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

This highlights a particular concern of mine regarding how we are engaging with the sector. The Comptroller and Auditor General's states, at paragraph 49.83: "Dublin City Child Care Committee stated that some child care services in the Dublin area have not been inspected in two to three years". My own experience of the sector, which is backed up by anecdotal evidence, is that the standard of care provided is variable. The situation has changed somewhat in recent years but at the peak of the boom, crèche places were so precious that there was a reluctance on the part of some parents to challenge the quality of care provided for fear they would lose their child's place. Is Mr. Breslin confident that we now have the right regime in place to monitor the quality of care provided? While it is very good in the vast majority of cases, there is evidence to suggest that is not the case across the board. What action is being taken in this regard?

Mr. Jim Breslin

What is in place is good but we would like to see further reform. For example, we are working with the HSE on further reform of its inspection processes. In this regard, we are close to rolling out joint inspections by the HSE and the inspectorate of the Department of Education and Skills. We are seeking to emphasise the educational component; that there be a continuance between preschool education and junior and senior infants. The objective is to achieve a seamless transition and to ensure the literacy and numeracy strategy is included in the curriculum of preschools. We hope to roll that out in the new year.

I note the comment from the Dublin City Child Care Committee. In other areas of inspection, the inspectorate would take a risk-based approach whereby it would try to ascertain, based on characteristics, the providers which warrant more frequent visits than others. In the case of a long-established, reputable crèche, for example, which has successively shown it is not only delivering to quality but improving quality all the time, there would not be a requirement for the same frequency of inspections as in the case of a newly opened crèche.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

The report states that a number of officers have responsibility for inspecting 4,800 child care facilities. In 2010 they visited 3,000 of them, or just under two thirds, which is not bad. However, the report goes on to observe that these inspection reports are not published by the HSE. Is this not an improvement that could be made in order to provide parents with more information?

Mr. Jim Breslin

I fully agree, and that is a priority for us, in co-operation with the HSE. One of the processes we have had to go through is to ensure there is a standardisation of approach by inspectors throughout the country so that we can have a format that will be consistent and could be published. In the case of nursing home inspections, for instance, reports are available on the Internet. This means that residents' family members can find out what the issues are in the particular facility and watch out for them when they visit. The same should apply in respect of child care providers and we will be working next year to achieve that.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Is Mr. Breslin hopeful that we will see the publication of these reports next year?

Mr. Jim Breslin

It is certainly a priority in respect of the preschool inspection service. It would be in the top three objectives we hope to achieve.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I described the inspection rate as not bad, but it is not great either. In effect, a large number of facilities are apparently evading inspection during the year.

Mr. Jim Breslin

I agree with the Deputy. However, if it is the case, say, that 3,000 out of 4,000 facilities are being inspected and those 3,000 are the ones, based on the evidence gathered, which are most in need of inspection, that might offer reassurance. However, if the other 1,000 are not visited simply because the inspectors did not get to the end of the list, rather than because they are less in need of inspection, then there is an issue.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Is there a database on which information regarding the total number of child care providers within the State is available? Are reports carried out in respect of such providers integrated into this system in order that if any of our guests receive a report about something happening, the history and performance of a provider can be immediately accessed?

Mr. Jim Breslin

Yes. As a result of the introduction of the universal preschool year, there is 94% or 95% participation on the part of all crèches throughout the country. There are a couple of other schemes which may add to this. We have quite close to a fully comprehensive database in respect of all the providers. We would only be a couple of percentage points short in that regard. We have not just been gathering information on who the providers are and where they are based but also, on the basis of Pobal's compliance visits, we are adding further details in respect of providers' qualifications and so on. We are getting to the point where we will have a very good database. In some ways the database on preschool will probably be better than would be the case with similar databases which relate to the utilisation of many other public services. While work remains to be done, in technology and coverage terms we are getting very good at this stage.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Leaving aside the large amount of money the State has invested in the sector, as everyone present is aware we are dealing with very young children who cannot speak on their own behalf if something is going wrong in the environment in which they find themselves or if their parents are not around. During the coming period, it is essential - particularly in view of the stress under which the sector is operating - that we should do everything possible to ensure that the position regarding the frequency of visits is correct in respect of the different centres. In addition, the findings must be made transparent. It appears that we are all on the same wavelength in respect of that matter.

Deputy Anne Ferris

As the Chairman is aware, I was examining chapter 2 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's special report on monitoring school attendance. On that note, I welcome Ms Clare Ryan. I wish to seek clarification in respect of a number of issues relating to the report.

Since 2009 the position in respect of school attendance, the reporting of attendances or absences and the number or children sitting the leaving certificate has improved. This is probably due in no small way to the fact that the board took on the responsibility of the home-school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme in mid-2009. The report states that there are 408 home-school community liaison scheme staff and 253 school completion programme staff. These staff are not within the employ of the board. Are they employed by the disadvantaged schools and is Ms Ryan of the view that they should be in the direct employment of the NEWB?

Ms Clare Ryan

In the first instance, I would not accept the term "disadvantaged school". We have schools which serve areas of disadvantage, which is somewhat different. In fact, many of the schools we are going to discuss are probably some of most highly innovative within the system. In the context of the home-school liaison scheme, I worked as a home-school liaison co-ordinator for a number of years so I can speak with some authority on the matter. Home-school liaison co-ordinators are employed directly by their boards of management, so they are within the schools. That is good. Due to the fact that they are within the school system, they are operating with their peers and with other staff. Much of the work in respect of home-school community liaison relates to changing people's thinking and developing understanding and a value system around children. I am of the view that it is extremely providential that the co-ordinators are employed directly within schools because their work relates to education and to bringing parents closer to their children's learning.

There are 124 school completion projects throughout the country. The vast majority of these are located in areas of designated disadvantage. The Deputy is correct to state that the employment circumstances of those on these projects are different. The projects are grant funded but what is really interesting about them - again, I can speak with authority on this matter because at one stage I was national co-ordinator of the school completion programme - is that in the early days governance structures, incorporating primary and post-primary schools and various agencies, were established at local level. The system is, therefore, unique. What marks this programme apart is that those involved in the individual projects can decide on interventions at local level based on their own contextual knowledge and on understanding their own school systems and on the children attending their schools. There can be an ownership and an accountability around that.

In one sense, the projects are grant aided. Within the NEWB are the regional co-ordinators or the management services of each of those structures. Part of our work is to create, develop and articulate an overarching mandate which can be followed at local and community level. That is a strong process which the Deputy has just described.

Deputy Anne Ferris

I fully agree. Obtaining local knowledge and getting to know children and their parents and teachers, is far better than sitting in an office and not dealing with people on a face-to-face basis.

The earlier it is identified that young children are missing school the better. What protocols has the board put in place in the context of identifying, at a very early age, children who are not attending school? If a school principal is concerned, can he or she contact the NEWB directly? If he or she can do so, how soon thereafter will the parents or guardians of a child be contacted? School principals and teachers will often pick up on certain matters more quickly than others.

Ms Clare Ryan

I will deal with the Deputy's three questions separately. She is correct in her assertion and that is why I welcome the ECCE scheme, which allows us to intervene at the earliest possible opportunity with children and develop within them a value for and a love for education and learning. Principals may make direct contact with the NEWB at any time and they often do so. A large number of principals telephone me because I know so many of them. In the context of the quarterly or period returns - as the Comptroller and Auditor General referred to them - there is an option for principals to comment if they are concerned in respect of particular children. I do not know of any principal who would wait until the returns were being made before raising his or her concerns. I worked as a principal for 11 years and I know that if a there is an issue regarding a particular child, one will make the call very quickly. When the call is made, the board will intervene.

The beauty of the three services is that, particularly in the context of the home-school liaison co-ordinators, they are on site. I would be concerned if people were surprised by certain developments because they should know their school community and the wider community extremely well. From working with siblings, for example, one might be aware that another child from a family is about to commence school under the early start programme and one is, therefore, intervening even before that child begins school. In the context of early start units, part of the work of home-school co-ordinators in a preschool sense is to visit homes in order to deliver pre-reading packs, etc. This means that they develop with children and their parents a readiness with regard to attending school. I hope this will continue with the ECCE scheme.

Part of the work of all primary home-school liaison co-ordinators is, therefore, to work with communities and prepare children to move into the system. The earlier we can intervene - I use that term in the most positive way - in the context of assisting children in developing a love and a value for education and a hunger for learning, the better it will be. That is part of what we do and it is another positive aspect of the home-school liaison co-ordinators because they operate within a teaching framework. Whether it is co-ordination, literacy, numeracy or whatever, that is part of their job. The earlier we intervene, the better.

I wish to refer to the legislation for a moment. One of the anomalies is that under the Education and Welfare Act, parents are obliged to ensure that their children, when between the ages of six and 16, attend school regularly. The vast majority of children are enrolled in school before the reach six years of age. However, we will intervene in all cases. Home-school liaison co-ordinators and those who work within the school completion programme operate in a preventative way. If we need to intervene in a specialised way, we will certainly do so.

Deputy Anne Ferris

Is there a major difference between primary and post-primary schools? I will not go into detail but a couple of comments were made to me at local level to the effect that primary schools are far better at monitoring absenteeism, the welfare of children, etc. I do not know whether this is because primary schools are smaller than post-primary schools. When children who may have some form of disadvantage or disability move into post-primary education, they go to much larger schools and confusion can often arise. I am aware of one example of a child who has an intellectual disability and who was suspended from school. The mother received a telephone call from the school principal to inform her that her child was suspended and to take him out of the school. The mother was not told for how long he was suspended. She endeavoured to contact the principal to establish that but the mid-term break intervened in the meantime. She was then notified that her child was going to be reported because he had been absent from school for so long. She felt that was not her fault. Things will happen like that. It probably happened through no fault of the principal's because a principal has many tasks to do. I would question this area because some of the figures may not be accurate. I am aware that Ms Ryan cannot comment on a particular case but I wanted to highlight that one.

Are there blackspots where children do not have access to a welfare officer?

Ms Clare Ryan

In terms of the Deputy's first question, she has described what has really happened. She has considered the distinction between primary and post-primary school and she is correct about that. There are many reasons for that. Anyone here who has children will know that for a four year old coming home from school, the teacher is everything to him or her. One would try to get one's child to eat cabbage but if the teacher says the children should eat cabbage, the child would nearly eat cabbage all day. There is that love of learning for children. The teacher is with the children all day in the classroom and there is a greater capacity to monitor them. Teachers in primary education are holistically engaged with the children.

There is a difference in teaching 13 or 14 year olds, particularly those children who might find it difficult within the system. Many of us would find it hard to understand that some children find school head-wrecking because each person here has succeeded within that system. The position for children aged 12, 13 or 14 is different. They are in bigger schools, will have transferred to those schools and some children may fail in the system, but that failure did not begin at second level. That has been happening over a number of years. The Deputy is correct in looking at the systems in terms of absenteeism, school failure and difficulties.

I have been involved at primary and post-primary levels and one of our big projects is working with school management bodies, teacher unions and parent bodies in having a conversation around education and attendance. The Deputy described a case involving a suspension and one of the real success marks of the National Educational Welfare Board is that there are clear processes in schools around suspensions and expulsions and there should be no ambiguity in that respect. One of the tasks performed by the National Educational Welfare Board was the guidelines on codes of behaviour, which were well received throughout the country, and within those codes of behaviour there are clear steps and procedures that should take be taken, all bound up with the notion of natural justice. Therefore, there should not be a lack of clarity. Nobody would want to have a child at home, as in the case described, not knowing when he or she is due to come back to school. It would be wrong for that to happen. I would be concerned if this were to happen.

The Deputy asked about blackspots around the country in terms of access to a welfare officer. The national educational welfare service, like many organisations, is affected by the moratorium on recruitment and we are deeply conscious of the environment within which we operate. DEIS schools take priority and that is a given but there are areas in the country where we have gaps in service for various reasons, leave arrangements and so forth. We are working closely with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on reconfiguring our service to make sure children's needs are responded to. One of outcomes of the international process will be to ensure we have a better and more consolidated service ongoing in schools throughout the country but as a board and management team we have made clear the direction in this respect. There is no school without a designated person. That is the number 1 point. The second point is that we have decided on seven categories of need within our service. There are seven categories that come first regardless of whatever else happens or what tasks present. These categories are as follows: where a child does not have a school place; where a child has been refused an enrolment; where a child has not transferred from primary to post-primary; where a court order is given in respect of a child; where a child has been discharged from residential care without having a school place; and, lastly and probably most importantly, where there is an education welfare issue combined with, say, a child protection issue. I can confidently say to the committee that children are at the centre of everything we do and that there are no cases and should not be any cases involving children where we would not respond to their needs.

Deputy Anne Ferris

I thank Ms Ryan for addressing the story I outlined. Obviously, there will be personality clashes because we are all human.

Ms Ryan mentioned the moratorium. Despite it being in place is the board able to apply to fill positions and, if so, is that only in the case of DEIS schools? Has the board been successful in filling positions?

Ms Clare Ryan

I take it the Deputy is speaking about a derogation from the moratorium.

Deputy Anne Ferris

Yes.

Ms Clare Ryan

In terms of DEIS schools, home-school-community liaison co-ordinators are teachers and they are determined to be front-line staff. If a home-school liaison co-ordinator goes on maternity leave, that teacher is replaced. Therefore, all 408 co-ordinators are in place.

In terms of the school completion project, they are grant aided. I am not saying they are not affected by the moratorium, which they are, but there is a difference. Such work should not stop because a co-ordinator goes on maternity leave and a governance structure might make a decision to redeploy resources or funding to ensure the work continues. I would really push for that. We cannot stop critical work, particularly in areas that need us most.

We in the educational welfare service are working closely with the Department of the Children and Youth Affairs in seeking to fill vacancies within our ECF framework for 2014.

Deputy Anne Ferris

I am grateful for that clarification. It is difficult if a teacher goes on maternity leave and her responsibilities are shared out because that involves extra work for other teachers and they may not be fully up to date on matters in this area.

Ms Clare Ryan

I would also make the point that children have only one chance.

Deputy Anne Ferris

That is right.

Ms Clare Ryan

If a child is in junior infants and the child's teacher is out on leave for a year, the child then moves on to senior infants. The hugely formative work that is done in terms of a child's learning could be lost. We are very closely tuned into that.

Deputy Anne Ferris

It is indicated in the report that the earlier the intervention is made in the child's early years, the better. There is no point in intervening, as it were, if the difficulty comes to light when the child is going into sixth class or moving to secondary school.

Ms Clare Ryan

That is no defence.

Deputy Anne Ferris

Figure 2.9 on page 57 of the report indicates that the west-north west area has a higher ratio of pupils per educational welfare officer and it has a higher problem attendance ratio. Has the board been able to devote more resources to that area?

Ms Clare Ryan

At present we are involved in a complex and exciting piece of work. Part of the work we are doing involves reviewing our case management process and examining the integrating of three discrete services to come up with a good blueprint for support services to schools in a co-ordinated way. It is an exciting piece of work. A good deal of what we are talking about in terms of reconfiguring or examining where people should go is part of that debate. From our point of view, it is important that we have given a lot of thought to this blueprint, that it is based on empirical research, evidence and policy and the placement of personnel is conjoined with that. In terms of the west-north west area-----

Mr. Dan O’Shea

Provision for the west-north west has been reconfigured more on a geographical basis than a numbers basis. Because of the moratorium, there are staff vacancies we have not been able to fill, for example, in north Donegal. We do not have an officer for that area and there is extra pressure when we have only one officer for a county. It comes down to demand and the ability to be able to respond. In large urban areas there tends to be a higher concentration of educational welfare officers and the response would be much quicker and more efficient than in areas where there are stand-alone officers as is the case in a number of counties throughout the country.

Ms Clare Ryan

I wish to confirm the at-risk framework, which I described, applies in every area across the country. If a query arose in Galway, Sligo or Mayo, we would respond in the same way to ensure children identified as being most at risk would be responded to primarily.

Deputy Anne Ferris

That is great. I thank Ms. Ryan. It is great to see someone before us with such passion for this area of work because on many occasions witnesses can be defensive in their responses. The passion the witnesses have for the board and the Department shines through. I thank them again.

Ms Clare Ryan

I am still extremely pleased to be here.

Chairman

We are going well.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I hope by the end of this meeting Ms Ryan will be ecstatic to be here. I welcome all the witnesses.

Ms Clare Ryan

That is a bit ambitious.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

You never know, I will give it my best shot. I will direct my questions first to Mr. Breslin. I have been struck by two factors concerning child care provision, the first of which I will vent because it is a bugbear of mine. I object to child care being viewed as babysitting. In that spirit, I am delighted to hear Mr. Breslin place such emphasis on preschool and early education. We are catching up in this State with broader international thinking in terms of understanding this as an educational intervention and not a babysitting service. That is very welcome.

The manner in which the services are provided is not great. Many different bodies are involved such as the Department, Pobal, city and county child care committees and voluntary child care organisations. It is not the ideal model in terms of provision of what is correctly described as a public service for young children. Could Mr. Breslin comment on that or give an indication of whether the new Department recognises it and if it is something with which he intends to grapple?

Mr. Jim Breslin

On the first point, I hope it did come across, because when we look at early years services and interventions internationally and the kind of evidence behind it, clear evidence is emerging from multiple disciplines, economics and neuroscience - how the brain works - that the benefits to education are at their greatest when the child is youngest. The child is more absorbent and more retentive of knowledge in those years than they ever are subsequently, so when one gets to my age one cannot remember anything, or at least one cannot remember anything new, only what one was taught years previously.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

That is not a good comment to make at this committee.

Mr. Jim Breslin

At a younger age the patterns of life are being set so the kind of investment one makes in purely financial terms will result in a benefit. One could examine where one starts to evaluate the benefits. I did not mention it in my opening statement although I had prepared information on it. One could focus on the direct personal benefits of the investment to a child for the rest of their life in terms of their subsequent education and earnings.

The evidence exists in terms of social benefits if one compares two groups of young children and puts one through early education but not the other. Work was done in that regard in the 1970s in Dunedin in New Zealand. Twenty or 30 years down the line there is a direct correlation between delinquency, anti-social behaviour and crime. It is higher among the group that did not receive early education. Amazing differences are evident at that level.

One could also take into account the cost to the State of social welfare, loss of earnings and locking people up. As a Department we are very much advocates for early education and early learning. Quality is an issue. It is not just a question of having places. The quality must be right.

On the question on the administrative arrangements, one thing we have done is to try to start to rationalise schemes and scheme processes so that we are working to a common approach and using common platforms and technologies. If one takes the early childhood care and education school year, ECCE, we have a system set up to pay for 66,000 children. We have brought the child care component from the training authorities - FÁS and the VECs - so rather than having them administer it we are working through the same process and adding it on to our scheme. We believe we have achieved efficiencies in that way.

On the levels of organisations we have involved, we have county child care committees involved and then we have national organisations. The county child care committees have been involved from the earliest days. The reason for that is that the sector is wider than the State. This is parents and community-based facilities working together, but we want to give support to them on the ground. Rather than just administer a national payment scheme we want people on the ground who can support the child care providers. That is the role of the county child care committees, to have somebody who can work with parents who are asking questions about crèches and options but who also can work with providers on requirements they need to meet in their locality and how they might change and adapt. Because of that reach we have 33 county child care committees. In today's situation the question must be asked about whether we are getting a return on spreading across 33 organisations. If we were to move away from that we would not have representation at the county level in the kind of planning discussions that take place about demography, planning and where we need to go in terms of housing, and the relationship with the VEC and other educational institutions at county level.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Obviously there is a concern about taxpayers' money, and value for money but my question is based more with an eye to the coherence and durability of the service. There is a great danger, to which Mr. Breslin referred in his figures, that so many places created for child care are jeopardised when there is a dip in the economy. That is the reality in terms of what has happened. If we are to have a coherent, long-term system, it cannot be dependent on the vagaries of the economy or the labour market if we understand it as a public service and an educational investment in children. From the outside looking in, when I see a multiplicity of agencies, I question whether that is the way to go in the medium to long term. I do not ask Mr. Breslin to argue against his own new Department, but should the service rightly be placed with the Department of Education and Skills, for example? The bigger question relates to coherence. It is not so much about the pounds, shillings and pence. It is about the long-term strategy for the public service.

Mr. Jim Breslin

One of the things we have done at the Department of Education and Skills, which is novel in central government is that we have co-located in our Department staff of the Department of Education and Skills who are working on early years with us. We have done joint work on literacy and numeracy through their understanding of the education world and our understanding of the preschool world. We work very closely with the Department of Education and Skills.

On the more medium-term issue, I hope that the county child care committees are seen by providers and parents as a support to them. If they are not then they are not fulfilling their role. Rather than being burdensome we want to see them as supportive and a one-stop-shop where they try to work with people on the ground.

At national level we have certain rules and regulations which we need to abide by and enforce. The Comptroller and Auditor General would be quick to say if we did not. We must have a relationship with providers which ensures they are fulfilling their contract but the county child care committees must work with them to empower, help and support them to do that.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Presumably that is a matter the Department reviews periodically.

Mr. Jim Breslin

Yes. I got into some trouble with correspondence to the committee earlier in the year where I noted that with the changes in local authority structures and the amalgamations in Limerick and Tipperary, we would review in those areas in particular how we structured our county child care committees. I was not trying to make a bold statement on that, merely that it was something we would have to review as part of the continual review of our structures.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Okay. Reference has been made to the 15,000 vacant places. What is the breakdown of that in terms of private provision versus community facilities?

Mr. Jim Breslin

The 15,000 is a figure that the Comptroller and Auditor General extrapolated from the occupancy levels witnessed by Pobal. The overall occupancy level was 81%. Perhaps Mr. Burke has information on whether there is a difference in occupancy between community and private provision. From discussions we think the community provided services are a bit higher in terms of occupancy, but I could be wrong.

Mr. David Burke

We do not have the same level of information on private facilities as we have on community facilities. We have much more information on community provision simply because they tend to participate in more aspects of the programmes, between the capital programme and the subvention scheme which is particular to the community programmes.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

How many of those places are not filled? Does Mr. Burke have a figure in respect of occupancy rates?

Mr. David Burke

The most detailed figure we have is from the compliance process with the free preschool year, because in that we are engaged in checking all participants. I am trying to recall. The 81% was an extrapolation we did from an 80% sample of information we had but I do not have a discrete breakdown between-----

Mr. Jim Breslin

It might be helpful for us to do an exercise where we would examine that 80% sample to see how many were private and how many were community to see if there-----

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

It would be useful for us to know that.

Mr. Jim Breslin

I would be happy to write to the committee with that information.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

One phenomenon is that many of the child care and early education services have had a very close relationship with the community employment schemes. Will Mr. Breslin indicate whether there has been a relationship between under-occupancy in the community facilities and changes made, restrictions placed and even cutbacks in respect of community employment? Is that something he has noticed or examined? Is it a factor?

Mr. Jim Breslin

No. I do not believe it has come up in our work to date.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Could I suggest that at some stage Mr. Breslin would cast an eye on that-----

Mr. Jim Breslin

We will look at it.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

-----and also on the career paths of qualified early education and child care workers? It is a shame that the State would invest in educating people in this area, who are predominantly women, to quite a high level of expertise who then do not get an extension or whatever and that skill is lost to the system. That does not make any kind of economic sense. I raise it with Mr. Breslin because it goes to the heart of the central concern, which is the commitment over the long term to early childhood education.

Mr. Jim Breslin

I will make a few points on that. In the roll out of the early childcare scheme from 2000 we set a requirement which was that for the first time there would be a level of qualification for the preschool leaders within the crèche. That was set as a FETAC level 5 qualification. If there is a worker in the crèche who has a FETAC level 7 qualification we will give an extra payment which I believe is €400 per annum. One would expect that to feed its way through to the worker because it is worth having those workers in one's employ. We are also seeing up-skilling going on by virtue of having put in that requirement. Increasingly, we are finding people with a FETAC level 5 qualification, and levels 6 and 7.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I am aware of that and that is the way to go but I can tell Mr. Breslin that in my own district many people who are qualified at FETAC level 5 no longer work in child care. There is an issue in that regard. If the State invests heavily to skill people to a very high level and if we say we are committed to the preschool education model, as Mr. Breslin states and that is welcome, from the point of view of taxpayers and citizens we must be sure we are not incoherent around that. I am simply flagging it and not necessarily looking for concrete answers but it is something Mr. Breslin should investigate to ensure there is not a brain drain out of the sector because the funding in real terms is short-term. That appears to be a big problem.

Mr. Jim Breslin

I agree with that. That is something we would keep in mind as part of our review of the sector. We have had a transition provision around that FETAC level 5 requirement where it is sufficient if the person has the core modules but not all of the modules but in August of next year all crèches participating in the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme will have to have FETAC level 5 skills. That means some crèches will have to move towards ensuring they have somebody with those skills. Even if they do not stay in the crèche they are in I would hope those people do not leave the sector. We want to retain people in it.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Ms Ryan indicated that the moratorium has had an impact on the service. North Donegal was mentioned, for instance. Could she give us the overall picture? How many posts are currently vacant because of the moratorium?

Ms Clare Ryan

Currently we have 93 education and welfare staff and we are hoping to fill 109 positions within our employment control framework. Ms Slevin has the detail on that.

Ms Laura Slevin

With the introduction of the employment control framework, ECF, we are working with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, and because we are very aware of the current economic conditions, to recruit up to the level of 106, which is our 2014 ECF framework. As our sanctioned numbers overall have decreased we have about 80 positions within the National Education Welfare Board which are vacant.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Those are the sanctioned positions lost.

Ms Laura Slevin

They would have been sanctioned positions but the ECF reduced the numbers of all public sector organisations.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I am aware of that.

Ms Laura Slevin

In conjunction with that, under our expanded remit we will have more scope to reconfigure resources. We are quite satisfied with that level at the moment.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Ms Slevin is satisfied that that level of staffing is sufficient.

Ms Laura Slevin

If we can work within the ECF framework, yes. At the moment there are significant gaps.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Will north Donegal be sorted out?

Ms Laura Slevin

We will be allocating resources appropriately if and when we get sanction to do that.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I am very conscious of the fact that Ms Slevin does not set the ECF and the moratorium is a political decision - we can take that as read - but I would take a different view. I find it worrying that any of the sanctioned positions would be taken from her. I can say that but perhaps Ms Slevin is constrained in terms of what she might say.

Ms Clare Ryan

If I may respond. Part of the work of the National Educational Welfare Board is putting in place toolkits for every school in the country so that we operate in a preventive and interventive way. The best way of working with children and with the families is to intervene as early as possible, as we heard from the discussion earlier. For example, a major piece of work we are doing this year is developing guidelines on attendance strategies and even though good work is happening around the country in many ways we are the expert agencies and part of our work in working with primary schools, post-primary schools and other experts is developing strategies for schools to ensure that within their complement they can support children at risk. That is a huge piece of our work. Where a home-school community liaison co-ordinator is involved, the same applies. They work in a preventive way from the earliest stages onwards. What Ms Slevin referred to in terms of the reconfiguration and the outcomes we hope for, we are looking at a continuum of children. They start with us aged three years and four months up to the age they leave school and we are looking at the most appropriate people intervening to support that child in the learning system to ensure they are maximised at the end of it. Even though we might have a designated person in a school we are constantly looking at the welfare of that child and protecting the right of that child to an education.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Absolutely.

Ms Laura Slevin

We must be conscious of the current economic environment, and all organisations would happily take on more resources, but in conjunction with our extended remit and working to our ECF framework we will endeavour to reconfigure the resources to best deliver the services for children. However, that is a reality with which we have to work.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

We all live with those realities. I appreciate that. In terms of absenteeism rates, there has not been a-----

Ms Clare Ryan

Regarding 2009-10, and we sent the briefing document in advance, we can see we had the highest recorded returns from primary and post-primary schools. That is important because that means schools are taking the issue very seriously. There is a framework in place. Years ago there was no framework. Children were sent home until something would be done and so on. That is very important. For example, in 2009-11- we can say that the days lost through student absence are marginally down but even if we are down 0.1%, that is a saving to the system of almost 70,000 days. That is a real gain. Although that is good, I caution that we would need to see the trend for a number of years before I could say there was a significant improvement.

With regard to other data, this year has seen the lowest recorded number of suspensions at primary and post-primary levels in the system. I need to be cautious on behalf of everybody in this regard because attendance is hugely complex. Just because one puts something in place does not mean that what one desires will happen. Just because one puts a child sitting in a seat does not mean he or she is engaged in a system of learning, for his or her own benefit. Work around attendance, participation and retention involves daily, weekly and monthly effort. The best place for that to happen is within the classroom and school itself. Part of our work on the board is to re-engage and re-lodge with schools and to support them in supporting the children whom they take into their care.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

I appreciate that. Ms Ryan mentioned children and teachers. I have two at the stage where múinteoir is everything. This is an enormously complex area.

Obviously, the cutbacks and the moratorium have hit every area, including classrooms. There was an ongoing controversy not so long ago over special needs assistants, for instance. In respect of Ms Ryan's work on attendance and participation by the child in the education process, has she seen, measured or considered the impact of the set of Government policies on children and the outcomes for them?

Ms Clare Ryan

It is only a few months since I have been in the classroom so I am really deeply rooted in reality. Everything we do in the NEWB is rooted in reality because every day we are dealing with children. Much of the time we are dealing with the children that people do not want. We are dealing with the children - not the children applying for medicine - who are really struggling within the system. The board is very much rooted in reality and we consider it all the time.

One of the very positive aspects of current thinking is that it really clears one's mind and refines what one is doing. Part of the integration process is being really clear about what we are about and what we are not about. The primary responsibility for a child being in school, for example, lies with the parent, so one of our absolute considerations must concern how we develop and continue to develop the capacity of parents to support their children and to bring them closer to their children's learning.

In schools we have lost SNAs and RTTs. These are real losses. What we need to put in place are really good toolkits and strategies that result in outcomes for those concerned. This month, we are finishing a series of consultation workshops around the country on the integration process. That is also evidenced by research and so on. The overarching voice emerging in this process indicates students, principals and teachers want to see outcomes. They do not mind once they see something happening and there is clarity on roles and responsibilities. I am confident about what we are doing at present. We are determining the most clearly focused and best way to deliver outcomes for children and families, fully in conjunction with the schools. They welcome that and the fact that we are now taking on the voice of schools and understanding their position. It is not just a case of throwing the book at them and stating what they should do next; it is about changing the paradigm and having a conversation.

Regenerating the school implementation group is about looking together at data such as school returns, dates that are accessible to schools and systems that they can manage such that we will be working together rather than regarding each other as the enemy. We are in place to guide, support and advise. I see very positive outcomes.

Deputy Simon Harris

I thank Mr. Breslin and Ms Ryan. I congratulate both of them and wish them well in their respective new appointments. There is an exciting opportunity for the new Committee of Public Accounts to have before us an accounting officer from a Cabinet-level Department responsible for the area of children and youth affairs. I look forward to interactions on many of the difficult issues the delegates will have to address in regard to child protection, social work, numbers, etc. I am sure we will be returning to that on another day.

In regard to the issue of child care, I was looking at the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The overall administration of child care seems to be a very crowded field, for want of a better phrase. There are child care committees, the Department, Pobal and the seven voluntary child care organisations. While I accept that all have a distinct role, there is surely a degree of overlap. What level of co-ordination is in place to ensure the best use of child care resources?

Mr. Jim Breslin

There is co-ordination at a national level. We bring all the interested parties together. We set priorities for child care. In terms of funding, each of the bodies, be it a national voluntary organisation or county child care committee, must show us how it will deliver on those priorities. In the past couple of years, we have been funding the county child care committee. It tells us what it is doing. We ask it how it is implementing the national plan and national set of priorities. It is for these that funding is received. We have co-ordination mechanisms.

Deputy Simon Harris

Mr. Breslin has already outlined that the statistics on projected need for child care places were so wrong. This was not the fault of Mr. Breslin's predecessors but due to significant economic change. How are we preparing for the future? Based on comments made by the masters of the various maternity hospitals, there is still a very high childbirth rate in the country. We all hope we will return to greater economic growth. Mr. Breslin referred to having to retain the number of places. My question is twofold. The first aspect pertains to how we are preparing, the nature of the data we are collecting and the basis for the statistics. The second aspect concerns the free preschool year. Is it Mr. Breslin's view that this will be sustainable? I accept it is a policy decision for the Government. Is Mr. Breslin satisfied, based on current resources, that the scheme is sustainable based on an increased birth rate in the country?

Mr. Jim Breslin

On the second point, the construct of the scheme is such that there is no reason other than one based on financial provision that it is not sustainable. Our priority is to increase the quality of the scheme every year successively to improve the quality of what children are getting from it. It is a sustainable scheme. It is not only sustainable but of considerable economic benefit to Ireland, because of both direct employment and the medium-term improvement in education in the country. We hope we can continue with the scheme.

On the issue of our planning for the future, the current situation we face is not associated with a lack of need for child care but a lack of purchasing power on the part of parents to pay for it. The improvement in that position will come about with the improvement in income and a general improvement in growth within the country.

One caveat is that I do not believe we would be seeking to target 100% occupancy within the sector. That is where we were when we started out on this process. It meant parents could not access preschools in their immediate localities; they would go on waiting lists. Fees were being driven up and there was a lack of competition. We are in favour of parental choice. To have choice and competition, one needs to have spare capacity. That said, we have too much spare capacity at present.

In terms of our planning process, we will utilise the Pobal processes around occupancy to determine, on an ongoing basis, where occupancy lies within the sector. As that starts to improve, we will face the question on the respective roles of the State and private sector in trying to grow the sector if we think a requirement is emerging.

The last effort in this regard was to stimulate the private sector and to fund the community sector. The private sector was stimulated both with matching funds and tax reliefs. If we were getting to a point where the capacity of the sector was starting to be exhausted and there was a need for further investment, we would, as a matter of policy, have to stand back and determine the best way to proceed and ask whether the private sector would proceed on its own or whether the State would need to intervene.

Deputy Simon Harris

I could not agree more with Mr. Breslin in that there is a need for surplus places. If there were no surplus places, I presume we would be criticising Mr. Breslin for not having prepared properly for the future when there is economic recovery. I take the point made by Mr. Breslin.

The issue of inspections was touched upon but I would not mind returning to it. Paragraph 49.8 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report indicates the link between Pobal and the HSE. Perhaps my question is one for Mr. Burke. What I am taking from the paragraph is that the HSE was informing Pobal only where it was initiating a prosecution. What is the link between Pobal and the HSE in terms of ensuring we have in place the correct inspection regime?

Mr. David Burke

We are actively in touch with the HSE. We are fortunate in the sense that our role in respect of the free preschool year gave us a fairly clean slate with which to start off and so we put together a bespoke system. The challenge we were set was making 4,300 visits within a year. Logistically, it was a big ask but we were obliged to do it. The space for us to take it on was created by the curtailment of the capital programme. However, we invested heavily in both our logistics and monitoring systems in order that we could make the entire visits process as paperless as possible and so on. We also have a GIS system that assists us. Interestingly, that system originally was brought on-stream for the rural transport programme. However, we now have been able to apply it across a range of programmes. This is something the HSE has been looking at actively with us. We have a significant infrastructure the HSE is looking at with us. We are working in a practical way to put in place the infrastructure and to make sure we are not duplicating. As I stated, we work across 16 programmes and are in a position to apply that infrastructure across them. In that sense, we are very efficient.

Deputy Simon Harris

I thank Mr. Burke. I will turn to Ms Clare Ryan but first must compliment the work of the staff of the National Educational Welfare Board, NEWB, and in particular that of the educational welfare officers, EWOs, who are the people with whom those of us on the political front line interact on a regular basis. I understand Mr. Dan O'Shea heads up that division. My experience, and that of many public representatives, has been one of great positivity. However, it also has been one of watching many individuals operating under extreme pressure and stress, which is a reality for everyone in the public sector at present. When this reality interferes with the well-being of children, a problem arises, as a tipping point has been reached. In that regard, to follow up from Deputy McDonald's point on black spots, can Ms Ryan indicate whether an issue exists at present regarding any school or a vulnerable child in any school who is in need of an EWO? Has every child in the country access to an EWO? Ms Ryan might expand on this point.

Ms Clare Ryan

While I referred to this earlier, there is absolutely no defence in saying, irrespective of the chasms we have in service, there is no school without access. We have a variety of methodologies whereby schools can make contact with us. For example, we have a helpline, which is there all the time. Schools also have an opportunity through the periodic returns. In some areas, particularly DEIS areas, relationships developed where we were able to have in place one person or two people. In areas of high demand such as Finglas, where I taught in my early days, there are two full-time education welfare officers. Consequently, relationships have been built through which schools could notify us if they have concerns. There are lots of ways.

I wish to return again to the categories I have gone through regarding an area in which there is a need, that is, where a child is at risk. I refer to the categories that are absolutely non-negotiable for us such as a child who is without a school place. A child who has been refused enrolment would be a section 29 area. It would be deemed critical, were a child not to have transferred from primary to post-primary. Similarly, a child coming from residential care, who was the subject of a court order or finally, where both education welfare and child protection issues arose, would skip any queues. Consequently, I can confidently state to the Deputy there should not be. However, we also depend on information coming to us from various levels. We depend on us being told or being notified. This also is really important. Moreover, we have work to do to develop our own profile at a national level and to develop that really strong, active co-operation on a day-to-day basis with schools to confirm we are there to quickly hear those stories.

May I again remind the Deputy of the DEIS schools, while also taking the compliment for those working in home-school community liaison and school completion programme roles? These people work really hard and are absolutely dedicated. My experience across the systems in education is that they are present in schools. Consequently, I would be absolutely surprised and shocked were a child to come up out of nowhere. We are working in schools in which people know their children and know what their cohort should be involved in at all types of levels. For example, a classroom teacher in junior infants would be looking at co-ordination, the ability to have materials, whether children were getting to school on time or whether they were being collected. It is one of a teacher's skill sets to be looking constantly. I can say this to the Deputy with confidence.

As for the black spots, I will ask Mr. Dan O'Shea to provide the finer detail the Deputy might require.

Mr. Dan O’Shea

I have mentioned the stand alone officers and one challenge facing educational welfare officers is that in some instances, there is one officer to 18,000 pupils. One's intervention levels obviously will be much higher and in the case of children who are presenting as poor attenders, we try to get schools to give us the undertaking that they have tried to deal with the situation themselves first and have identified such children as being at serious risk of early school leaving or dropping out completely, in order that we can get in there. Obviously, the more staff we have, the earlier the intervention that can result.

There are black spots around the country, through leave arrangements or non-replacement of staff. It falls on the existing EWOs to respond and I must say there has been huge flexibility among the existing EWOs in responding to what we perceive to be at-risk situations. While it might not arise within an EWO's own designated area, he or she has been willing to go outside that area. However, there is only a certain amount any one person can do. This is the challenge we face on a daily basis when trying to manage staff, the excess levels of demand and how we can respond to that. We always feel vulnerable and at risk if schools report children to us who they perceive to be in danger of early school leaving and of being at risk.

In general, children who are at risk in school in respect of attendance tend to be those who are at risk in the wider social context as well. They also are known to gardaí and social workers. We are involved in many child care committees nationwide and endeavour to work with other agencies to get an early identification of those children who are deemed to be at risk. We work with the Garda, the HSE and the local authorities at another level to ensure the identification of children who are at risk. However, the definition of being "at risk" for the National Educational Welfare Board is the child who is at risk of early school leaving or who is in danger of dropping out of school completely.

Ms Clare Ryan

In addition, part of the work we are doing, which was referenced in the chapter of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, concerns examining our own practice to ensure children do not fall through the gap. Part of this involves moving towards a case management framework, that is, a referral system. Over the years, there has been much anecdotal material or mythologies pertaining to phrases such as "at risk" as used by Mr. O'Shea or "at risk of dropping out". Part of what we must do in evidencing that is to create a really good referral framework. Within this referral framework, one should document and illustrate the work one has done to date. In a school, for example, this work might have entailed adapting curricula, providing additional learning support or a key worker or might involve a care team movement. However, one should document clearly what one has done and then move on to what needs to be done thereafter. We are confident the referral framework towards which we will move should ensure that schools can demonstrate they have put in place a suite of interventions. These will include measures such as parents having been worked with and so on. Consequently, when the referral comes to us, we will be looking at a clear set in respect of children and will know when to intervene and what to put in place.

Deputy Simon Harris

To be clear, I take from this response the impact of the moratorium is that while children still have access in all cases to an EWO and while the NEWB will apply the various criteria to prioritise cases, the significant issue and problem concerns the length of time they might have to wait because there is only so much a limited number of people can do. Essentially, it is a time issue.

Ms Clare Ryan

Yes and they should not really be obliged to wait either. For example, it may be decided to open an active case in which both the school and the NEWB are satisfied that every process has been put in place but that parents are not really co-operating and perhaps there is a need to move a step towards enforcement. Such a case then will be opened and all processes will be put in place. Equally, one should note that the percentage of our prosecutions that goes towards court is tiny when compared with our overall workload. Moreover, the victory for us in a prosecution is not having someone sanctioned but is in having that child returned to mainstream education and being able to take up his or her entitlement to education.

Deputy Simon Harris

My final question is on the important issue of data protection, as well as on the issue of co-ordination and cross-departmental and cross-agency support. This must be done on a more than informal basis. In respect of data protection issues, does the NEWB have access to a database of primary school children?

Ms Clare Ryan

As the Deputy is aware, there is no database of primary school children, which is one of the huge challenges.

Deputy Simon Harris

It is a huge challenge. If she does not mind, Ms Ryan should expand on this point, because most people would be rather taken aback to learn there is no such database. While these are not all questions for which the NEWB is responsible, Ms Ryan should indicate the historic reason no such database is available. Are steps under way to rectify this?

Ms Clare Ryan

That would be a matter for the Department of Education and Skills. It should be remembered under the Education (Welfare) Act schools are obliged to supply the National Educational Welfare Board, NEWB, with an annual attendance report. When I talked around the statistics earlier, it is important to note 96% and 97% of schools are responding. We are getting the data from the schools and using it. While much work has been done on a database, it is more a matter for the Department of Education and Skills.

Deputy Simon Harris

I do not want to put words in Ms Ryan's mouth but would such a database be helpful to the NEWB?

Ms Clare Ryan

I know from the early childhood scheme that much good work has been done on developing a database. In years to come it will become more manageable.

Chairman

The committee could make a recommendation on this.

Deputy Simon Harris

It is important the committee pursues this. I compliment the work done by the NEWB, as do many others. However, it is vital its work is maximised and every possible tool is given to it to do so. If there is a way of making the board's work easier, more efficient and cost effective, although that comes much further down the pecking order when dealing with children, it should be done.

Ms Clare Ryan

Deputy Harris has a good point. In 2009 to 2010, the key transition areas are the figures of children transferring from primary to post-primary. We know, for example, 94.3% transferred on to a post-primary school and 4.2% emigrated with their families. However, we do not know what happened to 1.2% of children. Assumptions can be made that they are home-educated or special needs children. At these transition points, however, we need to know these children are okay and are being moved along a continuum of care and education.

Deputy Simon Harris

Will Ms Ryan outline the board's relationship with the Health Service Executive, HSE, on child protection?

Ms Clare Ryan

The NEWB has developed several formal protocols in these areas with the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, the National Educational Psychological Service Agency, NEPS, and lately with the HSE. As Mr. Dan O'Shea said, in the extreme child welfare cases, such as those I worked on in my early years in south Finglas, much more is happening in the background. It is imperative we work in a co-ordinated way at local level not just with agencies, but schools and other adults. We all have a collective responsibility for the children in our country. They are just too precious. It would be wrong for any of us to abdicate responsibility. One must act if one sees a child on the street who should be at school. We all need to take responsibility for this and that is when one gets really good outcomes.

We need to mirror good practice, discourse, conversation and listening as models for our children. This would be a real investment in their lives.

Chairman

Up to €3.7 million in capital costs had been paid to 126 State-subsidised facilities that were subsequently closed. Are these moneys recovered by the Department?

Mr. Jim Breslin

Some of the 126 facilities received revenue funding for services or a staffing grant for a period. In the cases in which they received capital funding, if they were over a certain threshold on the funding they received, we can then go into a process of recommitting the grant and seeking to get it recouped. It is based on a period within which they were in operation. We can recoup more on capital the shorter the time the facility was in operation.

It is, however, not easy. In the current economic environment, it is based on a facility having an income from which we can recoup the moneys. One could be faced with a facility attached to someone's home on which we have a lien. It is hard to enforce this. Pobal, which operates this funding on the Department's behalf, would be interacting in every case to get as much money back as is possible.

Chairman

Will Mr. Breslin provide a note to the committee on this and how it is reported in the Department's accounts?

Mr. Jim Breslin

Yes. In some cases we have reached a point of write-offs and we must note this in our accounts.

Chairman

Will the total €3.7 million of capital costs be written off?

Mr. David Burke

Of the 126 facilities, 70 received capital funding of €3.7 million. The amount recoverable is just under €800,000. Out of that, the Department has recovered €131,000. The majority of that would be against extant or operational services. The problem arises with closed facilities. The investment may be tied up with bricks and mortar or, as in many cases with private providers, there could be a loss of livelihood and other difficult circumstances. We pursue it as best we can.

Chairman

There was also €3.7 million which the Department was to receive from the EU under the equal opportunities programme between 2000 and 2006 which was not paid in 2010. Is this a timing issue?

Mr. Jim Breslin

Yes, it is a timing issue. The EU agency involved needs to close its books on all schemes it co-funded in Ireland. It will be early next year when we receive this funding. The delay does not relate to any issues concerning our scheme but to a wider timing process.

Chairman

How does the NEWB helpline work? Is it effective? Who uses it? How many calls does it get?

Ms Clare Ryan

I cannot give the number of calls but it is effective. Often, principals need assistance on doing returns on school leavers. It may also just be to get in contact with the local educational welfare officer, EWO, or parents looking for advice.

Chairman

How does it work? Is there a person manning the telephone line who can direct the query to the appropriate area or personnel?

Ms Clare Ryan

Yes. If the query is about Munster, the caller is put through to the clerical officer looking after Munster. When we are working with the Department, we hope we could have a centralised referral system in place.

Chairman

I ask Mr. Buckley to make his final comments on the chapter.

Mr. John Buckley

In both areas examined today, a considerable amount of change is being managed with a reconfiguration occurring in the system. As this is brought to a close and we settle down to business as usual, I would emphasise the need for performance targets. The report highlighted there is no overall performance target for school attendance established in Ireland while there is in Britain. It would be useful to set targets to have a solid basis for evaluation.

Overall, in both areas, since they are at different stages of development, it would be useful to move as those stages are completed to an evaluation of results and how we are doing in the area of child care and of attendance and welfare.

Chairman

Does the committee agree to note Vote 41 - Children and Youth Affairs, note Chapter 2 of the Special Report 74 of the Comptroller and Auditor General on monitoring school attendance, and dispose of Chapter 49 - child care facilities? Agreed.

I thank the witnesses for attending. Deputy Anne Ferris commented earlier on Ms Ryan's passion and commitment. The contributions of both Ms Ryan and Mr. Breslin this morning were very informative. We all learned a great deal from what they had to say. The exchange was worthwhile. We learned, not only about their budgets but about how they function. It is an example of how the Committee of Public Accounts can engage positively with Departments and agencies. I wish them both well in their work. I also thank all of the other officials for attending.

The witnesses withdrew.

The committee adjourned at 1.10 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Thursday, 1 December 2011.