John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One of the advantages DEIS schools enjoy over non-DEIS schools is the position of the home school community liaison teacher. This is a valuable position that would be valued in any school. The Minister might look at closing the gap between DEIS and non-DEIS schools and providing additional roles. We could arrive at a position whereby a home school liaison officer might work with several non-DEIS schools but it is certainly one of the significant advantages.

As I said in my opening remarks, some of the additional benefits of DEIS, such as the free school books and hot school meals schemes, have been extended to all schools, which is very welcome. We can take learnings from DEIS and what has worked well to see if we can extend our resources to apply them to non-DEIS settings.

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