Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

That is quite far from saying we are going to agree to introduce a DEIS+ categorisation. At best, it is kicking the can down the road and continuing to look at it. This idea has been out there for a number of years, thanks to the principals who have been pushing it. Everything was pointed towards the OECD report but these principals are not happy with the OECD report. They say that it relied on asking questions of the Department of Education and that when the Department was asked how it was doing, it said it was not doing too badly, when of course it would say that. The principals also say the report ignores the needs of generationally disadvantaged communities.

The Minister of State rightly points to the successes of DEIS, which is fair enough. Those successes illustrate the point that where we give schools, teachers and SNAs the resources, they are able to use them very well in order to have an impact. However, there remain 100 to 150 schools that have particular additional needs. The figures for trauma and additional needs are striking and troubling. We should be putting in the resources to assist those teachers and schools to help the kids, which is the best possible investment we can make at this point in time.

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