Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

There never was any intention to remove any of the DEIS Band 1 and Band 2 allocations to those schools. What was proposed with the introduction of DEIS in the mid-2000s was that in schools located in DEIS areas which, prior to the introduction of DEIS, had received disadvantaged status of a particular kind and had received, as a consequence, some posts - a much smaller number than those of DEIS and not based on the same overall criteria as that of DEIS - which were left intact in those schools, those posts would be removed. For reasons that I do not know or do not understand, those existing posts were left intact before DEIS was rolled out and when DEIS was rolled out, those posts were left intact. Therefore, one could have two DEIS schools side by side, with one that had posts from previous disadvantaged scheme with the same profile of disadvantage having more resources than another DEIS school that came into the system in the first instance. What was proposed was that we would remove those extra posts in real terms as part and parcel of the overall necessary reduction.

I merely want to clarify that there is nothing in the intentions in the past or in the future that would diminish the status of DEIS schools as DEIS schools. What is proposed is to look at the examination. There is also the possibility if enrolment numbers have dropped, given the general allocation model, GAM, that is now obliged to alter because circumstances change, there is also a necessity for us to look at the impact of the new allocation of resources or GAM which may bring about changes in that school that would have nothing to do with its disadvantage status but would have everything to do with its enrolment.

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