Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is a very important issue. Officials in the Department of Education and Skills sit on a cross-departmental group and we take this issue very seriously. We have targeted support for DEIS schools. Initially when the DEIS school support system was set up it, it was not primarily on a geographical basis, but invariably it is on a geographical base. We are reviewing that and are looking at how we can have a more graduated and targeted intervention. Children who do not have homes will form part of that. We are in the middle of the review and we are already on record saying that we need to further enhance the €120 million funding we have for DEIS support and see how we can build on that in the future.

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