Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of DEIS. The previous Government made huge inroads in modifying and overhauling DEIS but even more can be done. I will give an example of Shannon town in County Clare. There are five primary schools and two post-primary schools, all of which are within a few hundred yards of one another. Two of the schools have DEIS status but the rest do not. In a town such as Shannon, there is high level of transience, with many people renting. The most recent census, which gathered the data used by Pobal to classify DEIS schools, did not take account of the fact that there have been wars in Ukraine and Gaza, or of the transience of the rental market and the fluctuation in prices. There needs to be a better mechanism for assessing DEIS. It would be better to have an in-school census whereby a principal or board of management would file annually, or biannually perhaps, a profiling of their school in terms of socioeconomic deprivation, Travellers, children from other jurisdictions and children who have English as an additional language. I think there could be a better mechanism and ask that the Cabinet subcommittee would examine this. I congratulate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on his election.

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