Brendan Ryan (Dublin North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this matter. The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, scheme, launched in 2005, is a positive scheme aimed at tackling educational disadvantage. Its purpose is to address and prioritise the needs of children and young people from disadvantaged communities, from pre-school through to second level education, and to provide a standardised system for determining the levels of disadvantage and an integrated school support programme to respond to it.

The action plan for DEIS schools is grounded in the belief that every child and young person deserves an equal chance to access, participate in, and benefit from education, and that each person should have the opportunity to reach her or his full educational potential for personal, social and economic reasons. Unfortunately, we are not able to deliver fully the opportunity for every disadvantaged child to reach his or her full potential as there is currently no capacity to expand the DEIS programme.

The economic climate of the past few years impacted on the DEIS scheme and caused it to remain relatively static.

DEIS schools deliver results in terms of improved attendance, retention, progression and examination attainment. As we saw last week, completion rates in disadvantaged areas rose by 14 points in seven years, to 82%. In recent weeks, we saw reports detailing improvements in vocabulary, comprehension, algebra and data analysis. More needs to be done but with DEIS, we have a framework to assist and achieve progress.

Currently there are 849 schools included in this programme. Some 657 are primary schools, 336 of which are from urban areas while 321 of which are from rural areas. There are 192 second-level schools.

By my count, there are only eight DEIS schools in north County Dublin. This is an area which has seen rapid population growth in the past ten years and which suffered a great deal in terms of unemployment when the economy crashed. We in the Labour Party worked hard to protect the DEIS scheme during this difficult period but as we emerge now into economic recovery and growth, we need to ensure the disadvantaged children are not left behind.

The DEIS scheme is ten years old. To my knowledge, the initial classifications of schools happened when the scheme began and little or no changes were made in the intervening decade. Ireland is a different place than it was in 2005 and the economic crash and its effects demands a review of the classification of some existing schools, and of new schools which have come on stream since 2005, to be considered for DEIS. Now is the time, as the economy is returning to growth, to examine whether extra resources can be delivered to these schools.

Under this Government, and due to the commitment of Labour Ministers for Education and Skills, first through the former Minister, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, and now through Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, we built new schools, replaced inadequate prefabs and engaged in extensive refurbishment works, even during the worst of the economic crash. I commend Deputies Jan O'Sullivan and Ruairí Quinn for this resolute commitment to improving existing schools and building new ones.

Over the past few years, we established new schools which should qualify to be considered for DEIS supports. It is important that schools, particularly new schools in emerging towns with a high proportion of new communities, can be considered as DEIS schools and entitled to the supports that DEIS offers.

I ask the Minister to commit to an effort to find extra capacity within the Department to classify new schools and reclassify existing schools in which there is a high level of deprivation, with a view to those schools qualifying for DEIS support. We cannot lose the progress made through the DEIS scheme over the last decade. If we are to see progress continuing to be made through the next ten years, we need to invest now.

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