Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with the Deputy. It is important for the Department to have an independent assessment of the work of DEIS and then we will have an opportunity to see where we can go forward. The OECD Strength through Diversity: Education for Inclusive Societies project is currently engaged in a review. It has been here, and was here last summer. It is reviewing the entire DEIS area. It met the schools involved in DEIS, schools that are not involved and DEIS schools that believe they require more from the programme. It is an enormous body of work. The OECD review is being complemented by a programme of work within my Department to develop a future policy for resource allocation to address education disadvantage. This work also involves consultation with a range of relevant stakeholders. Officials involved with this work recently held consultations with more than 200 principals of primary and post-primary schools. This included a number of principals from those most acutely disadvantaged schools and provided rich data for the team to inform its work.

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