Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I accept the Deputy's bona fides in the context of what she is saying. I do not want to take away from the excellent work being done by principals in all schools, be they DEIS or non-DEIS. Other schools look at the DEIS schools and see that they are getting considerable additional funding. This application process was open to all schools. As I said previously, we keep the entire system under review. It is my hope that we might have additional funding to run a second stream of this. We received 2,727 applications for the funding. We will keep everything under review going forward. I hear what the Deputy is saying, but there was a fair method used in the context of the process. It was fair insofar as no favouritism was shown to one school above another.