Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. With regard to the provisions that have been made available to schools this year, we are talking of a package in excess of €437 million, which supports four to six hours of daily additional cleaning within the schools and the purchase of PPE and hand sanitisers. All of that is covered in the allocation and, indeed, there is a balance of €226 million which will be paid to the schools for the remainder of the academic year, from January next to June.

The Deputy raised the issue of urban band 1 DEIS schools. With regard to the general pupil-teacher ratio, it has been universally welcomed that there has been a reduction of one point from 26:1 to 25:1 and, equally, there has been a reduction of three points in the enrolment requirement for the retention of a teacher. A very benign attitude was taken this year in particular, given the situation with Covid, in terms of those schools that are in a position to hold onto a teacher this year where they might have fallen short of the number of pupils, and the greatest flexibility possible was applied. The Deputy is correct that for urban band 1 DEIS schools, the reduction was from 24:1 to 23:1. There is, of course, the other provision in the junior aspect, where there is a ratio of 20:1 and it is 22:1 ratio in the vertical schools.

There is a package of DEIS supports. I am currently reviewing this and consideration is being given to a wide variety of supports and aspects of that package that can be introduced.