Seán Crowe
Ceist:115 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Education and Science when a National Education Welfare Board official will be appointed to the Tallaght area to carry out their statutory duty. [28534/03]
Written Answers. - Departmental Appointments.
The Education (Welfare) Act was fully commenced on 5 July 2002. Under the Act, the National Education Welfare Board was established to ensure that every child attends school regularly or otherwise receives an education. The board will employ educational welfare officers to provide welfare focused services to children, families and schools throughout the country.
The new services will be phased in and my Department allocated a budget of €5.4 million to the board for 2003 to begin developing the services involved. A management team was put in place earlier this year. Thirty-six new staff are being recruited which will bring the total number of staff delivering educational welfare services nationally to 73. Under the board's work plan for 2003, five regional teams will be established and the educational welfare staff will be deployed in areas of greatest disadvantage and areas designated under the Government RAPID programme.
New staff are in training and the board will be making an announcement concerning their distribution shortly. Decisions relating to the assignment of educational welfare officers to specific areas are a matter for the board, which is an independent statutory body.