Truanting prosecution law to extend to infants’ parents

Parents of the youngest primary pupils will become open to prosecution if they are regularly absent from school under a Labour Party bill being supported by the Government.

It will mean that children attending school who are aged under the compulsory school age of six will be covered by laws regulating attendance for the first time.

Nearly six years after publishing his proposed change to the law as a government backbencher, Labour Senator Aodhán Ó Riordáin’s Education (Welfare) Amendment Bill looks set to pass after being supported last night in the Seanad by Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone.