A mother whose 15-year-old daughter missed over 60 per cent of school days in a 10-week period last year pleaded guilty at Limerick District Court yesterday to breaching a school attendance notice.
It was revealed that 30 court convictions were secured against parents of children with poor attendance records at schools across Ireland last year.
The cases were taken by the National Educational Welfare Board.
The Educational Welfare Service worked with 20,000 children with school attendance difficulties in 2012.
Of this figure some 3,000 cases involved children with “serious attendance difficulties”. A total of 132 court summonses were issued by the National Educational Welfare Board last year, which resulted in 30 convictions.
In yesterday’s case solicitor Ted McCarthy said his client was pleading guilty and asked that the case be adjourned to see if the improvement in her daughter’s school attendance continued. Judge Eugene O’Kelly adjourned the case until April 5th and told the mother the court would be “influenced” by her daughter’s attendance this year if the improvement continued.