Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will follow up on the school meals issue. I do not know how these issues keep on cropping up at the bureaucratic level. Significant funding has been provided by the Government in respect of school meals and our wish is that the money would get out there to schools.

An extensive body of work has been undertaken on the national review of the whole DEIS identification model, based on the latest school enrolment data and the data available from the 2016 census under the HP deprivation index. Quality analysis of this has been carried out by members of the DEIS team, which includes representatives of the Department of Education's statistics and social inclusion unit, the inspectorate and the Educational Research Centre. The consultation process with the stakeholders in education has commenced on the implementation of this model and work is now ongoing on the final elements of the model. That will provide the basis for the development of a DEIS resource allocation system to match resources and identified need. I have been speaking with the Minister in this regard, in terms of the broader programme, and obviously this is something we want to process as quickly as we possibly can.

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