Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the expansion of the programme. Within County Mayo, an additional 15 schools were included in the expansion announced in March of this year, which was most welcome. However, I wish to highlight the inconsistency of there being no DEIS schools in west or south Mayo. All the schools allocated DEIS status are in north or east Mayo. Certainly, while I understand that the model is a statistics-based one, there are issues around trying to get clarifications for principals and boards of management who are in desperate need. It may be the case that in one family, one child attends one school and siblings attend another school, resulting in a huge disparity in terms of the levels of teaching, learning and supports being provided. It is important that we get some consistency around it.

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