Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The action plan for educational inclusion, known as DEIS, was published in 2005 and now provides support to 836 schools serving a total of 169,500 pupils. There are 103,233 pupils in 646 schools at primary level and 66,237 students in 190 schools at secondary level.

The DEIS programme has been implemented in partnership with schools and other Government Departments and agencies such as Tusla, which manages the home school community liaison and school completion programmes, and the Department of Social Protection, which is responsible for the school meals programme.

After ten years in operation, the programme is being reviewed by my Department in consultation with key stakeholders and includes an education partners forum next Monday.

The review is looking at all aspects of DEIS, including the identification process for the inclusion of schools in the programme, the range and impact of different elements of the school support programme and the scope for increased integration of services provided by other Departments and agencies in order to improve effectiveness.

The programme for a partnership Government has committed to publish a new updated action plan for educational inclusion within 12 months. Subject to Government approval, it is intended to start to implement actions arising from an updated plan in the 2017 to 2018 school year.

The number of additional schools to be included in the programme will be determined by a new identification process for this purpose, which is currently in development.

In the meantime, I do not propose to make any changes to the current programme, including the addition of further schools.

OVERALL SCHOOL LEVEL DEIS EXPENDITURE 2015

Service	Description	Expenditure 2015 €m
	Primary Level
Primary Staffing	DEIS Posts (534 posts inc former disadvantage schemes-Breaking the Cycle & Giving Children an Even Break – 390 teaching posts and 144 legacy posts)	33.10
	HSCL Co-ordinators & 3 Senior Managers	13.7
	Behaviour Support Teachers (41 posts)	2.6
Primary Grants	Additional School Book Grants	1.01
	DEIS Grants (includes HSCL Unclusterable Grant* & Support Teacher Grant)	10.9
	Primary Total	61.31
	Post Primary Level
Post Primary Staffing	Post Primary HSCL teachers (172)	11.3
	Reduced PTR 17.95:1	9.1
PP Grants	Additional School Book Grants	1.6
	DEIS Grants (Post Primary) incl. HSCL Unclusterable Grant*	3.6
	Post Primary Total	25.6
	Primary and Post Primary Supports
Literacy & Numeracy	DEIS Literacy & Numeracy Initiatives (including Reading Recovery, JCSP Literacy strategy, Library Project)	4.4
Teacher Education	Additional Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for DEIS	4.2
NEPS	Additional psychological time (20 posts)	1.66
Evaluation	Educational Research Centre	0.08
	Primary and Post Primary Supports Total	10.34
	Total DES Expenditure	97.25
	External Supports
External DEIS supports	School Completion Programme (Dept. Children & Youth Affairs)	24.76
	DEIS School Meals (Dept. of Social Protection)	24.5
	External Supports Total	49.26
	Total Expenditure	146.51

*HSCL Unclusterable Grant – paid to a small number of schools where it is not possible to allocate a HSCL staff resource due to geographical location. DEIS Primary Grants are paid by SIU - other DEIS payments are made by other DES business units.

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