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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 1 Dec 1988

Vol. 385 No. 1

Written Answers. - Necessitous Pupils Scheme.

76.

asked the Minister for Education the areas in which means testing applies to school children in relation to transport, books and fees; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

In the case of national schools, my Department operates a scheme by which grants are paid to schools towards the cost of books for necessitous pupils. The scheme is administered by the principal teachers of the schools who, subject to the amount of money made available to them annually, have discretion in the selection of pupils to be assisted and in the extent of the assistance to be given. No scheme of means-testing operates for this purpose — a necessitous pupil is defined as a child from a home where genuine hardship exists because of unemployment, the prolonged illness of a parent, a large family with inadequate means, a one-parent family or other circumstances of domestic financial hardship.

A similar scheme exists in the case of necessitous pupils attending post-primary day schools providing free post-primary education.

The position in relation to school fees in post-primary schools is that free education exists in the vast majority of secondary schools and in all vocational, community and comprehensive schools. A special arrangement of the free education scheme exists in the case of Protestant pupils, however, whereby block grants are paid to an independent agency representing the main Protestant churches, which distributes the grants according to the needs of the pupils on the basis of criteria operated by the agency itself.

Means testing is not applied in the provision of school transport services. However, where charges apply, eligible children whose parents or legal guardians are medical card holders are exempt from these charges.

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