Dáil debates

Thursday, 14 December 2017

Topical Issue Debate

DEIS Administration

8:15 pm

Photo of Jackie CahillJackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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I have been tabling questions on the new DEIS programme since October of last year. I have asked general questions, first, to ascertain the criteria being used and, second, specific questions about schools in my constituency of Tipperary and particularly for the five primary schools based in Tipperary town. The principals, staff and management in all schools put forward compelling cases to have their schools included and backed up their case with credible and detailed statistics.

We all understood that the Department was using a new system to decide on the schools that would or would not qualify. We were told that the deprivation index the Department would use would bring fairness and transparency to the whole process. We must remember that the new system no longer allowed input from staff and management of the schools.

When the Minister made the announcement of 79 new schools being added to the programme for 2017 we were very disappointed that Tipperary town primary schools were not included. However, it is at this point that it became clear that the process was in no way transparent or fair. Despite promises of all schools being informed of where they stood, all queries and questions were met with stonewalling answers.

The group of schools in Tipperary town that I am talking about made a strong case even after the announcement and visited the Dáil to press their case. However, at no point in answers that I received to parliamentary questions was I informed that 257 schools nationally had met the criteria but were not included in the announcement. Why did that information have to come to us through the media? Surely that information was relevant, particularly when there was an emphasis on fairness and transparency in the new deciding criteria, the deprivation index. Why was this information not offered up openly, considering all the questions that were being asked inside and outside this House?

What is clear now is that a further 257 schools were identified as qualifying for support, using the new deprivation index, but were not being included in the new DEIS programme. Was that the reason for not offering this information to all concerned?

Was this deemed reason enough not to offer this information to all concerned? Surely this was a mistake. Surely these facts would have been better understood if they were shared fairly and transparently in response to questions asked here. More importantly, they would have been better understood if they were shared fairly and transparently with the schools themselves. It would have given the schools a better understanding of how the new deprivation index worked, and would have offered them hope that they could be included in a new DEIS programme in the future.

It is wrong for this process to exclude input from staff and management of the schools. These are the people working on the ground who know the children they are teaching individually, particularly the children who are most at risk. They fully understand the communities these children come from and the difficulties they face, and it is wrong to exclude them. Therefore, at the very least, I urge the Minister to review again the criteria used in deciding who qualifies and to allow input from school staff and management. This episode has shown once again that there is an effort to centralise decision making, and proves that a centrally focused decision-making process is achieved at the cost of fairness and transparency.

8:25 pm

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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This is an outrageous state of affairs. Deputy Cahill has outlined the situation very well. Criteria were established but they have never been explained clearly to anybody, either in this House or to schools themselves, as to how schools qualify for the DEIS programme. We are simply told that there is an index which relates to the census of 2011 which is applied to get the list of schools. Clearly it was not applied properly. Some 257 schools are revealed as being classified as disadvantaged by the Department and worthy of support, but they have not received that support. I have accused the Minister of dodging questions on this in the past. He has dodged questions in the past, and he is dodging them tonight. It is disrespectful to the House that the Minister for Education and Skills is not in the House tonight. I am certain he is not too far away.

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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In fairness to the Minister for Education and Skills, he is usually here for Topical Issue matters.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I will take the Ceann Comhairle's word on that, but he is not here tonight to discuss what is a major issue for schools all around the country. Deputy Cahill spoke about the five schools in Tipperary town. There are schools all over the country affected by this, which is why the Ceann Comhairle has recognised this as a huge issue. Those schools do not know why they have been excluded. They do not know the basis on which calculations were made. A review process took place but it has not been implemented at all, as far as I can see. We have no real information about it.

The DEIS programme was announced and launched at the start of this year on the 2011 census figures, just before the 2016 figures became available. The Minister wanted a good news story to start the year. It was rushed out really quickly and it was not ready. Hundreds of schools were left out of the programme, but the Minister wanted to be seen to be tackling disadvantage. He has picked certain disadvantaged schools to benefit from it. We do not begrudge those schools; we want them to benefit from the programme. However, he has excluded hundreds of others. Furthermore, he still has not produced the 2016 calculations. The 2016 figures are available; the Haase and Pratschke, HP, index was published a few weeks ago. It could be done very quickly if the Government wanted to do it. We are told that it is an easy thing to do.

The Government is not giving children the chance they deserve to prosper and to get the best education possible. Teachers are not being given the best possible chance to teach those students. The Government is further entrenching disadvantage in communities around the country. Educational opportunity is not being given to everybody. We need answers to these questions. This is a major source of controversy. It made front page news. This is massive. Questions are dodged on it all the time. I have been asking questions - I have them all here - and Deputy Cahill has been asking questions too. We have never had answers, and if there are 257 schools which are disadvantaged but not on the list, they should be added to the list immediately. Some of these schools will have cases before the Ombudsman, querying why they are not qualified for DEIS status while others are. I would encourage them towards that path.

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I am glad that this matter has been selected and to be in the House at 9.15 p.m. debating this issue. I must record that it is disappointing that the Minister is not here tonight to listen to these concerns and that we are dealing with the Minister for State instead. It is not disappointing for me personally but for the children of the schools I will refer to.

There is no transparency here. When schools in my constituency were not put on the list, schools which in my view and that of teachers and parents should obviously be on the list, I was surprised. Indeed, anybody who knows the area would know about the levels of deprivation and would be able to see that the schools should be afforded DEIS status. When those schools were refused DEIS status I lodged freedom of information requests asking for the scoring for Scoil Naisíunta Ghort an Choirce or Scoil Naisíunta Rann Na Feirste. Each request was refused. This speaks to a lack of transparency. We then hear in the national media that internal documents from the Department say that 257 schools should have been on the list and met the criteria but were excluded for resource reasons.

I want to know, on behalf of teachers and pupils in west Donegal, which schools they were. Were they Scoil Naisíunta Gort An Choirce, which has been campaigning on this issue for many years and which has raised that school's plight with the current Minister and indeed his predecessor? Was it my former secondary school, Pobalscoil Ghaoth Dobhair, which also does not have DEIS status despite the fact that every single primary school in the parish has DEIS status? A child in Gaoth Dobhair is disadvantaged in bunscoil but miraculously is not when he or she goes to secondary school. The same situation applies for Gort an Choirce. The primary school in the parish has not been awarded DEIS status, but when one goes to the secondary school in the parish one automatically has DEIS status, despite the fact that the new figures, released a couple of weeks ago from the census, show that the level of deprivation in that area has actually increased dramatically. Rann Na Feirste is clearly an deprived area, and Meentinadea is in exactly the same situation. There is no rationale whatsoever. These students are not being afforded DEIS status due to what appears to be a penny-pinching exercise. We all know that DEIS status comes with resources and supports that assist pupils in these schools to reach their full potential.

I would also make the point that the schools we are talking about are schools that are not only in disadvantaged areas but are also in the Gaeltacht agus atá ag iarraidh an Ghaeilge a choinneáil beo. Níl an Stát ag tabhairt an tacaíocht chuí do na múinteoirí, don bhord bainistíochta nó do na páistí, go háirithe, mar nach bhfuil siad ag tabhairt an stádas DEIS dóibh.

Tá sé soiléir do dhuine ar bith atá ag iarraidh na fíricí, go bhfuil ceantar Gort an Choirce faoi mhíbhuntáiste agus tá sé níos measa ná mar a bhí sé cúig bliana ó shin. Tá Gaoth Dobhair mar an gcéanna, agus ba cheart go mbeadh Pobalscoil Ghaoth Dobhair san áireamh le DEIS. Maidir le Rann na Feirste agus Mín Tine Dé, tá cás láidir ansin go mbeadh status DEIS tugtha díobh. Tá súil agam go ndéanfaidh an tAire athbhreithniú ar an gceist seo go sciobtha.

Photo of Ciarán CannonCiarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I am taking this debate on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton. If he could be here, he would be. As the Deputies are aware, delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, is the main policy initiative of the Department of Education and Skills to address educational disadvantage at school level. No new schools had been admitted to DEIS since 2009. A new five-year plan was published in February 2017 and sets out, as a series of actions, the details of an updated DEIS school support programme which builds on existing supports available to schools in a way that sets out initiatives to ensure that stated targets are reached. A key objective of DEIS plan 2017 is the development of a more robust and responsive framework for assessing individual schools.

The new DEIS identification process uses data, including small area population statistics, SAPS, from the Central Statistics Office 2012, as represented in the Pobal small area HP deprivation index - Haase and Pratschke 2012, and centrally held Department of Education and Skills pupil data from the primary online database, POD, and the post-primary online database, P-POD. This approach removes the administrative burden on schools to provide socioeconomic data relating to its pupil cohort and ensures consistency and uniformity in the assessment process of schools across both the primary and post-primary system. The HP deprivation index, assesses demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parent rate, overcrowding, social class, occupation and unemployment rates. That data is combined with pupil data, anonymised and aggregated to provide information on the relative level of concentrated disadvantage in the pupil cohort of individual schools.

This system is also very responsive to changes in school demographics, which was strongly called for by stakeholders, in that this new identification methodology can be updated on an annual basis from the school annual census returns, and every five years following the CSO national census of population. The initial application of the model assessed all schools and found that most schools have pupils from disadvantaged areas but that the concentration of disadvantage varied.

The model also identified a number of schools not currently within DEIS, with a very high level concentration of disadvantage. Based on this information, and as a first step in the application of the new identification process, 79 additional schools were brought into the programme and a further 30 schools were identified for increased levels of support. These schools began to receive DEIS supports from September this year. In future years it is intended to extend the DEIS scheme further. This would involve admitting schools which have lower concentrations of disadvantage than this first group. It was in the context of a possible extension of the DEIS scheme at lower concentrations of disadvantage that the number of new schools and the cost that would be involved was estimated. This was the context in which the figure of 257 schools arose. There has been no question of excluding schools.

The first commitment which has been made is to reassess all schools in terms of their identified level of disadvantage, taking into account the updated census data combined with updated school data. The timeline is for this process to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2018. This will allow new pupils and the changes in the profile of small areas between 2011 and 2016 to be taken into account in measuring the profile of schools. New schools at the high threshold of disadvantage may be identified in this process, and it is intended to bring any such additional schools identified into the scheme at the earliest possible opportunity subject to available resources. It remains the ambition to extend the scheme in future years to support schools and students where there is an identified need.

8:35 pm

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State gives the excuse for the 257 exclusions that the decisions were made in the context of a lower concentration of disadvantage. First, nobody knows what level of concentration is now required to be in the DEIS scheme. That information has not been given to anyone. We do not know what the level is. Second, the documents show that when the officials were briefing the Minister about this, they never talked about a lower concentration of disadvantage. They simply spoke about further expansion to include 257 schools in band 2 of DEIS. A school either qualifies for band 2 or it does not. It is clear that the officials who were advising the Minister in this case knew that these 257 schools qualified for band 2. There was no question of lower or higher rates of concentrations. There are schools all over the country in this group that qualify for band 2, as the Minister was advised, but that do not receive the supports. There is no evidence that there was any analysis of concentration carried out.

Photo of Jackie CahillJackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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As Deputy Byrne has said, there is a complete lack of transparency on this issue. As far as the schools in my constituency - the five schools in Tipperary town - are concerned, they met the criteria but have been deprived of DEIS status. From what I can see, this is purely a budgetary exercise by the Department. There is no genuine reason these 257 schools should not have been given the extra resources which DEIS status would have provided. These schools are extremely disappointed at the way they have been treated. I pay tribute to Carl O'Brien from The Irish Timesfor bringing this to our attention. As public representatives, it was very disappointing that we had to find out from the media that these schools were excluded.

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I have been saying it for years and I will say it again. It makes absolutely no sense that the schools which I mentioned - Pobalscoil Ghaoth Dobhair, Scoil Ghort an Choirce, Scoil Rann na Feirste agus Scoil Mhín Tine Dé - are kept out of DEIS status. It does not make any sense whatsoever. The Department has refused freedom of information requests for the criteria it uses. Will the Minister of State explain how every primary school in the parish, every feeder school to the secondary school, can have DEIS status, but the secondary school does not? Will he explain how an area which has increased in deprivation over the past five years still does not qualify for DEIS despite the fact that it is a disadvantaged area and always has been? Every other primary school in the parish has got DEIS status, as has the secondary school. Will the Minister explain that to me, because that is the situation in which Scoil Ghort an Choirce finds itself? Will he explain to me how a proud Gaeltacht school in Rann na Feirste, which is a deprived area, is still denied DEIS status? It does not make any sense. I have asked the Minister to meet me in respect of these four schools. I have asked the Department to publish the criteria. It is denying these children and schools the additional supports. There is never any transparency. The Minister of State says that he will review every school in the first quarter of 2018. When will a decision be made? When he finally realises that these schools should have been afforded DEIS status, when will the Department make the decision that they will be afforded that status? Will it be at the end of the first quarter of 2018 or will it be in September 2018?

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I apologise to Deputy Mattie McGrath who wanted to contribute on this issue. The rules around Topical Issue debates are quite clear. The time belongs to the Member who has nominated the topic or to a nominated substitute, so I cannot bring in other Members.

Photo of Ciarán CannonCiarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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On Deputy Doherty's contribution, it is perfectly understandable why there may be primary schools in an area which have DEIS status and post-primary schools which do not have the same status. The Deputy referred to the levels of deprivation within the rural area as a whole. Part of the assessment process consists of an in-school assessment in respect of the levels of educational attainment within each individual school, the pupil-teacher ratio within the school and pupil data - in other words, the ongoing success or lack of success of students within a school. Therefore it is perfectly understandable that there may be a primary school which has poor scores in those areas but that those scores improve when the children move into a post-primary school because that school is run on a more successful model.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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This is completely wrong.

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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They are being punished for their success.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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That is new information about the DEIS scheme.

Photo of Ciarán CannonCiarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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That is not the case at all. It is here. That is the first point I want to make.

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Successful schools are punished despite the fact that they are in deprived areas.

Photo of Ciarán CannonCiarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The whole point of the DEIS programme is to support schools that are less than successful and to ensure that all of our schools nationally reach a certain level of attainment. That is quite a logical approach to take when using scarce resources.

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Does the Minister of State know what DEIS stands for?

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State has-----

Photo of Seán Ó FearghaílSeán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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There is no point in tabling Topical Issue matters if we are not prepared to listen. We do not have to like the answer, but we should at least let the Minister of State speak.

Photo of Thomas ByrneThomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State has given incorrect information.

Photo of Ciarán CannonCiarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I have not. The final point I would make is that the Department of Education and Skills has, for the first time, introduced an objective statistics-based model for deciding which schools merit inclusion in the DEIS programme in order that all stakeholders can have confidence that we are targeting extra resources at the schools that need them and have the highest concentrated levels of disadvantage. The Deputies should be welcoming that. I do not see why people have a problem with that. With effect from September this year, the schools included in DEIS will be those which have been identified as serving the pupil cohorts with the highest concentrations of disadvantage. The schools which have not been included are those which have not been identified as having those levels of concentrated disadvantage under the new identification model. Prior to any further adjustments to the allocation of DEIS supports, the identification process will be updated to include the most recent and current data available in terms of small area data derived from census 206, which is again something the Deputies should be pleased about. The update of the associated Haase-Pratschke index was recently published. The plan is to reassess all schools in terms of their identified levels of disadvantage. The timeline for that process of assessment is for it to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2018. I would hope that in the aftermath of that, having determined which schools are at the most serious levels of disadvantage, those schools will be the first ones to be supported.