Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some of my questions need a small bit of context but I will do it quickly. My questions are aimed at the Minister, Deputy McHugh, in respect of primary and secondary schools. There was a conversation earlier where I brought up the whole issue of DEIS. Sometimes we are afraid to talk about DEIS and the work it does, out of fear of insulting schools, principals and teachers. Sometimes I think we are protecting something at the higher cost of failing a lot of children. I fully believe the DEIS system is not adequate. It has not narrowed the gap between groups but has widened it. It has definitely widened the gap between settled and Traveller students within the school system. There is research available, which I am happy to send on to the Department. There was one important recommendation in the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills on the need to set up a cross-departmental task force on education inequality. That would take in most of the stuff the Traveller organisations have been talking about for weeks, namely, the cross-departmental impact of many different Departments on a Traveller child progressing through the education system from second to third level. Does the Minister think it is time the Department carried out an independent review of the DEIS system, perhaps as a longitudinal study? Were he to talk to schools and teachers privately in some of the most deprived communities, they would tell him something very different from what they say when speaking publicly. In many schools it is becoming like crisis management, not education. I really think it is time we acknowledge that DEIS is failing and that it is definitely failing Traveller children in terms of progression through the education system.