Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The truth is that the Government did not have its act together on this project. This was rushed out and done without thought and clarity. It is not clear to schools what the criteria are. How many people must be from an area of disadvantage for the school to qualify for DEIS status? There is also a very obvious flaw in whatever the methodology is in that if there are two schools in one catchment area and one takes all the disadvantaged pupils or a large proportion of them and the other takes the other section of society, there is no provision in the criteria to allow for that, so that is an obvious flaw.

There are examples all across the country of different schemes that can look at where people live, which is what the Government purports to do, but that can also look at medical card information, social welfare information, Traveller status and other groups. One secondary school of which I am aware was granted DEIS status but all its feeder schools from the primary level were refused it. That is not logical. That is wrong and is just one of many examples around the country where there are so many anomalies, and I know the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has an interest in this. I put it to the House and the Minister that the anomalies exist because the Government rushed this out, did not wait for the up-to-date census figures and has not set out clearly exactly what the criteria are.

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