The agency with responsibility for ensuring children attend school is to take around 20 cases against parents or guardians for failing to ensure their children receive an education.
The recently-established National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) took its first school attendance case to court yesterday.
The Children's Court heard a parent failed to ensure her child had been attending school for several months. The parent was prosecuted and directed to co-operate with the board, although the law provides that a fine or up to one month's imprisonment, or both, may be imposed.
In a statement yesterday, the board said it was hopeful the prosecution will have a positive impact on the educational welfare of the child. It will continue to work with the family to ensure the child's right to education is upheld.
The remaining 20 cases also involve children who have been out of school for significant periods, despite warnings from the NEWB. Parents or guardians involved in the cases received a school attendance notice warning them that legal action would follow if the children did not attend school regularly.
However, the children did not return to school and officers at the NEWB felt parents could do more to bring about change. In such circumstances, the board said in a statement, legal proceedings had to be pursued.
A spokeswoman for the NEWB said court proceedings formed a very small percentage of its work as it was a measure of last resort. Its main emphasis was on the welfare of the child and the family and on ensuring that concerns and problems were dealt with before school attendance became a crisis issue.
In its first year of service in 2004, welfare officers at the NEWB opened more than 17,000 cases and answered more than 7,000 calls on its helpline.
Several counties have no education welfare officers because of a lack of resources. Research compiled by the board underlines the seriousness of the truancy problem. It shows that more than 80,000 children missed 20-plus days of school last year.