Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State sincerely for his response. The model in Cavan relating to the large-scale infrastructure sports application had Cavan County Council, Cavan GAA and the Royal School collaborating and putting forward a project that brought the entire community together. It is extremely important in all walks of life. We could learn from having more collaboration across sectors, sports, etc.

I very much appreciate what the Minister for Education did. I know from school authorities who speak to their local public representatives about the benefits DEIS has brought in extra teaching resources and supports that are made available for children. We have an excellent community in Shercock. Thankfully, there is massive employment in the town, catering for a big area. We have a community with a very good football club that has great facilities. We also have an athletics club that is renowned throughout Ireland’s athletic community for the quality of its facilities. People have again worked very hard to put those facilities in place and ensure people are accommodated and given an opportunity to participate in their particular sport, in this case, athletics.

That community wants to ensure, as does the leadership in the primary school, that all children are given the best opportunity to reach their best educational attainment. We all know how impactive a good primary school education is for the future of children. In this case, where there is huge mobility and so many families whose first language is not English and additional challenges arise, consideration must be given to the inclusion of such schools in the DEIS programme. I again make the point that far too often we make decisions based on outdated strategies. A strategy may be very progressive and forward looking but things change much more rapidly in Ireland today than they ever did in the past, given the movement of people and the increase in population. There are new challenges that perhaps were not there ten or 12 years ago. The DEIS programme is of great benefit to so many pupils, schools and school communities throughout the country.

Its expansion in the future would be a very good day's work. Along with the Minister of State's work in the Department of tourism, sport and media, I compliment him also on his work in the Department of Education as Aire Stáit.

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