The Workers Party has described as an outrage reports that the Department of Education is seeking cuts in the School Completion Programme which seeks to identify and target children who are at risk of dropping out of school early and encourage them to remain in education through a series of initiatives.

Padraig Mannion,Workers Party Research Officer, said that the government were clearly ignoring the many calls from those working with disadvantaged people that services for the most vulnerable sectors of society should be ring-fenced against any cutbacks during the current economic downturn.

“The School Completion Programme is a small but very important programme of the Department of Education  and has been one of their more enlightened initiatives in recent years.  It recognises the very real problem of some children falling through the net and opting out of fulltime education at a most important stage”, said Mr Mannion.

“Once again a government is dealing with self-inflicted economic difficulties by attacking the most vulnerable in society. Coming hot on the heels of recent cuts in health and education this mean-minded attack is outrageous and will certainly have a long-term affect on those whom the scheme was designed to target”

Issued 27th August 2008