The school completion programme is an integral part of Tusla's educational welfare service. While it is a key support for schools under the DEIS programme, my Department does not have responsibility for the programme.
As the Deputy will appreciate, proposals for the reassignment of ministerial and administrative policy areas are a collective function of the Government. There is no current proposal to reassign ministerial responsibility for this brief.
In 2011, following a decision of the Government, a suite of educational welfare functions, including the school completion programme, transferred to the remit of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and later, in 2014, on the enactment of the Child and Family Agency Act 2013, transferred to Tusla, the Child and Family Agency.
Because of the key role played by the school completion programme in DEIS, my Department has maintained a close working relationship with both the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and Tusla regarding the latter's work programme to support schools. Both the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, DCYA, and Tusla were closely involved in the review of DEIS and the DEIS plan of 2017, published earlier this year, which contains a number of key actions for delivery on an inter-agency basis by Tusla's educational welfare service in collaboration with my Department, including specific actions relating to the school completion programme.
In 2015 the then Minister for Children and Youth Affairs commissioned the ESRI to conduct a review of the school completion programme and it is my understanding that Tusla is in the process of implementing the recommendations of that review. I should add that Tusla sits with us on an implementation group on DEIS, so it is represented and there is close collaboration between the two Departments and agencies.