TESS School Attendance Summit
The Day’s Agenda |
Session 1 (10am – 11am)
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Break |
Session 2 (11:15am – 1pm)
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Lunch |
Session 3 (1:45pm – 4pm)
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Summit speaker biographies |
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Áine Lynch is Chief Executive of the National Parents Council, representing parents of children in early years, primary and post-primary education.
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Áine O'Keeffe is the National Service Director of Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) and is the National Lead for the Tusla Wellbeing Project. Responding to the post-Covid crisis in school attendance she has led the TESS Five Year Plan for School Attendance 2023-2028. Áine has over 25 years’ experience leading services across the Youth and Community sector, with a particular focus on Educational Welfare since joining Tusla in 2016.
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Aoife Nolan is Professor of International Human Rights Law at the University of Nottingham. In June 2026 she was elected to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for the 2027–2031 term, having been nominated by the Irish Government. She has more than 20 years' experience in children's rights across legal, policy, practitioner and academic settings. She is President of the Council of Europe's European Committee of Social Rights, where she has played a key role in shaping the Committee’s extensive child rights case-law, including in relation to the right to education. She also co-leads the Doughty Street Chambers' Children's Rights Group.
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Dr Bernadette Ní Áingléis is an Education Advisor. She has worked in a diverse range of contexts including primary teaching, principalship, curriculum design, the Inspectorate, teacher education and research. Her academic background straddles both education and law. The voice of the child and young people is central to her vision and work in education and in law. She led the TESS consultations with children and young people on school attendance.
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Dr Emer Smyth is Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and is adjunct Professor of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. Her research centres on education, child wellbeing and school-to-work transitions, and she has co-authored the ESRI study using Growing Up in Ireland data on the impact of school absence at ages 9 and 13 on educational, labour market and wellbeing outcomes in early adulthood, the research underpinning much of the summit's evidence base. She has also evaluated the DEIS programme and the School Completion Programme.
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Julie Ahern is the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Legal, Policy and Services with the Children's Rights Alliance. She has spent over a decade working in the area of children's rights in organisations including the Children's Rights Alliance, the ISPCC and NASC. She is a qualified Barrister.
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Minister for Education and Youth, Hildegarde Naughton was appointed to the role in November 2025. Prior to this, she served as Minister of State attending Cabinet at the Department of Children, Disability and Equality with special responsibility for Disability.
Minister Naughton previously served as Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach as Government Chief Whip; and the Department of Education with special responsibility for Special Education and Inclusion. She has also served as Minister of State in the Departments of Transport, Health and Justice. Minister Naughton was a primary school teacher and was elected to Galway City Council in 2009.
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Dr Lucie Cerna is Senior Analyst in Equity, Inclusion and Transitions at the OECD's Directorate for Education and Skills in Paris. Her research covers education policy, equity and inclusion, and migration, including major OECD work on refugee education and supporting vulnerable students during and after school attendance problems. Previously a Lecturer in Politics at Merton College, Oxford, and an Assistant Professor at Leiden University College, she is the OECD main lead for the new research collaborations with Tusla’s Tusla Education Support Service.
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Dr Maryanne Lowney works with Tusla Education Support Service (TESS) as an Integrated Services Manager, supporting the Home School Community Liaison Scheme. Throughout her 20-year career in education, she has held governance and management roles within the post-primary sector. Maryanne has been closely involved in wellbeing and school attendance initiatives, including interagency collaboration through regional Children and Young People’s Services Committees (CYPSC), as well as youth mental health podcast collaborations with NEART. She recently led the Parent Consultations for TESS, further strengthening her focus on partnership with parents and communities.
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Michelle Iloduba is a secondary school student who was a member of the Youth Advisory Group which supported TESS in the development of the recent Child and Young Person Consultations on School Attendance.
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Paul Crone is Director of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), the professional association for post-primary school leaders across all three second-level sectors in Ireland.
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Yvonne Keating is the Chief Inspector at the Department of Education and Youth, the first woman to hold the role since the Inspectorate was established in 1832. She leads the evaluation of primary and post-primary schools, centres for education, and early learning and care settings, having previously served as Deputy Chief Inspector.
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Rapporteur |
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| Andrea Pappin is Co-Founder of Common Good, a strategic communications company who specialising in working with public bodies and organisations that serve communities or shapes society. A senior communications strategist with over 25 years' experience in Irish and European public life, Andrea is the rapporteur of this event and will be producing the final report of the consultations today. |  |