A database of primary school pupils must be set up to track up to 1,000 young people who fail to go on to secondary school, a children's charity demanded today.
In Barnardo's Budget 2007 recommendations, unveiled to mark the United Nations Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the charity called for action as it claimed one-in-three children in disadvantaged areas cannot read or write to appropriate standards.
Fergus Finlay, Barnardo's chief executive, said there are high rates of absenteeism but that there is no database to follow where up to 1,000 children who fall out of the system between primary school and secondary school end up.
"Poverty blights the lives of over 100,000 children in Ireland - and the number of children at risk of poverty whose parents are on low pay for example is much greater," Mr Finlay said.
The charity's recommendations for the 2007 Budget include a new targeted child income support, increasing fuel allowance rates and a national school book rental scheme.
Mr Finlay said the charity had also found the need for quality free early childhood education and care places for all children in the year prior to joining primary schools.
PA