I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
The purpose of this amending Bill is three-fold:
(a) to facilitate the serving of warning notices on parents of children who are absenting themselves from school;
(b) to provide machinery whereby a child may be produced before the court when the parent will not, or cannot, do so;
(c) to raise the maxima of certain fines imposed under the 1926 Act.
Under the 1926 Act, before a summons may be served on a defaulting parent, a warning notice must first be served so that the parent may have an opportunity of ensuring the regular attendance of his child at school. The notice must be served on the particular parent who, in the event of subsequent proceedings, is liable to be prosecuted and in practice this normally means the father.
The need for personal service of the warning notice was raised in the courts towards the end of 1963 and I am advised that, under the Act as it stands, personal service should be effected in every case. This causes considerable practical difficulty in the bigger centres of population, such as Dublin. The difficulty is partly due to the fact that fathers are often out at work and not available during the normal duty hours of school attendance officers and partly to the fact that in some cases—and usually the worst ones—the fathers, though at home, will not answer the door. I propose, therefore, to amend the 1926 Act to allow for service of the warning notice either personally or by registered post.
The 1926 Act provided that the parent of a child to whom the prosecution relates may be ordered by the court to produce the child before it. If the parent fails to produce the child he is liable to be fined but the Act provides no machinery whereby the child may be produced before the court on the failure of the parent to obey the court order. It has hitherto been the practice to issue a warrant for arrest, as the presence of the child in court is considered to be virtually indispensable in cases of incorrigible absenteeism and emphatically so where there is a question of the child's committal to an industrial school. I am advised that the purpose of the Act would best be served by the introduction of a provision specifically designed to ensure the attendance of the child when required; this I now propose to do.
After 40 years, it is felt that the scale of certain fines in the Act needs revision, if the fines are to serve their purpose, that is to put ample pressure on parents to send their children to school regularly. Because of the changes in money values in the interim, the imposition of fines within the maxima laid down in the Act of 1926, would in present circumstances, tend to bring the enforcement of the Act into disrepute. I propose, therefore, to amend the relevant sections of the Act by increasing the maxima 20/- and 40/-to £5 and £10 respectively.
In order to tighten up procedure further I also propose to introduce certain drafting amendments, on Committee Stage, to sections 2 and 3 of the Bill.