47 Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn asked the Minister for Education the school attendance figures by county for the last five years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7947/95]

72 Mr. Hyland asked the Minister for Education the school attendance figures by county for the last five years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7946/95]

I propose to take Questions Nos. 47 and 72 together.

I regret that data on school attendance at primary and secondary level are not available in my Department.

I am concerned at the current lack of adequate data on school attendance. This deficiency was one of the issues identified in the report of my Department's Working Group on School Attendance and Truancy.

In keeping with its commitment to address the problems of truancy and early drop-out, the Government has given my colleague Minister of State Austin Currie special responsibility for this area.

The Minister of State has set up a Task Force to examine submissions received in response to the truancy report and to consider measures to tackle the problem of truancy. The Task Force has had a number of meetings and the question of improved data availability is one of the issues being addressed.