Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Well, I am going to take a wild guess. I have a reply to a parliamentary question that provided me with some information prior to this. This matter relates to Scoil Bhríde Lann Léire. I visited the school and the relevant issues were pointed out to me. Rather than repeating how I responded to those issues, I will put on record the letter that was sent to me initially. It states, "Good morning Ruairí,I hope this finds you well. I'm contacting you because our school didn't received DEIS status in the latest round but our feeder secondary school, Scoil Uí Mhuirí achieved it". Scoil Mhuirí is also in Dunleer. The letter goes on to state:

We tick the boxes for DEIS status and I have spent the last 14 years lobbying quietly for it. I've been advised the latest DEIS status was given to schools on the basis of the 2016 census.

However, we have had a new social housing estate built behind our school and there is planning permission for 40 more to be built. Even without this new build, we have always believed that we are deserving of being a DEIS school, the reasons for which I would like to explain to you.

There are a lot of schools who are genuinely disappointed and feel unfairly treated and like us are struggling. We lack thefunding and personnel to meet the needs of everyone - pupils, staff and families. Staff morale is at a low and my time is taken up with trying to manage things, but my chief role should be to lead teaching and learning.

This is what we would hear from many principals about making sure that they can operate a school that can wash its own face and does not face significant issues.

Other issues that were brought to my attention by the principal included the grants calendar and the fact that the cost of living has increased but the capitation grant has not. The capitation grant is based on enrolment figures, but the building still needs to be heated regardless of the numbers in the school. We will always get anomalies on a year-by-year basis. This is an old building with a very old heating system. You will hear all those issues, including the fact that from time to time, the school cannot change the heating system to one it would like and is trying to keep this going - probably by using bailing twine and whatever else.

When I spoke to staff at the school a number of weeks ago, they told me that the school is still waiting for the refund for its secretary's salary paid over the summer. We need to make sure these pieces work a lot better. It will always be difficult for people to understand how the secondary school, which will have a similar cohort of children, can achieve DEIS status while others will not. Another school in the vicinity is Monastery National School in Ardee, which traditionally would have been the boys' school. This school got DEIS status but Scoil Mhuire Na Trocaire, which would have been the girls' school, did not. Again, this causes significant issues.

Regarding the DEIS identification model in the future, the reply to my parliamentary question said that:

In addition to this, following the National Census 2022 held in April 2022 it is envisaged that an updated HP Deprivation Index will be generated by Pobal and will be available in Q4 of 2023. My Department will engage with Pobal in relation to this process. The updated HP Deprivation Index can be considered by my Department to inform future resource allocation to tackle educational disadvantage.

We really need to look at a better way of dealing with this. There are far too many anomalies and I think the Minister of State will agree regardless of his answer.

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