Marian McGennis
Ceist:136 Ms M. McGennis asked the Minister for Education and Science the current situation with regard to the provision of a school attendance officer for the Cherry Orchard area of Ballyfermot, Dublin 10. [26111/00]
Written Answers. - School Attendance Officers.
Under existing legislation, school attendance committees in certain parts of Dublin, Dún Laoghaire, Cork and Waterford provide the school attendance service. In the remainder of the country, including the Cherry Orchard area, the Garda Síochána provides the service.
The Deputy will be aware that the Oireachtas passed the Education (Welfare) Act in July 2000. The purpose of that Act is to provide for a new structure to address problems of poor school attendance. The National Educational Welfare Board will be a key feature of that structure. That board will employ educational welfare officers, who will be deployed locally to treat problems of poor school attendance in individual schools. That Act also provides for the transfer of all existing school attendance officers to the National Educational Welfare Board upon the commencement of the appropriate section of the Act.
It is my intention that the deployment of local educational welfare officers will in the first instance be targeted at those areas of greatest educational disadvantage, and thereafter expanded to provide a national service.
My Department is currently examining the implications of the commencement of that Act. The Act itself provides that all sections must be commenced within two years of its enactment, that is, by July 2002.