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

It does not matter how many children are in the school, the same rule applies. In terms of the cut-off point, we use the same cut-off point to find the highest level of concentration. I would very liked to have been able to extend that to more schools but the budget I had available had to be used to support the areas with the highest level of concentration. As the Deputy knows, there was no school included since 2009. We have been able to include 79 or 2% of schools in the country because they were at the highest level of concentration of disadvantage. Those are the schools that we are helping.

This was not rushed. It was developed over an 18 month period when the statistical system was developed. The commentator, Mr. Haase, did not criticise the selection method rather he said that we should be looking again at some of the schools. We did not take any school out of DEIS. I do not know whether the Deputy is advocating that we should remove schools who have had DEIS. If that is what he is suggesting, he should state that clearly.

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