Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the Office of the Ceann Comhairle accepting this subject as a Topical Issue. I want to make a strong appeal, through the Minister of State, to the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton. I appeal to the Minister to give urgent and detailed consideration to the very detailed application submitted by the principal and the board of management of the Convent of Mercy national school in Belturbet, County Cavan, to be included in band 1 of the urban DEIS, Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, scheme. Over the years, I have been privileged to work along with the principal, the staff, the boards of management and successive parents' associations in trying to bring investment to that particular school. The school is a pivotal part of the local community and pursues as much involvement in extra-curricular activities as possible. Indeed, I have been at many of these events in the school over the years and it is a very important part of our local community in Belturbet.

The board of management submitted a detailed application. The criteria are very much based on the statistics gathered in past censuses. The Pobal indices for 2011 and 2016 all point to the inclusion of the school in the DEIS 1 band. The Department has the detail, but the position has deteriorated since and the number of areas of disadvantage has, unfortunately, increased, which considerably strengthens the school's case to be granted this status.

The Minister of State will be aware from his County Cavan connections that Belturbet is a Border town and, unfortunately, because of the Troubles when roads were blown up in the area and so on, the community suffered terribly. There has been a lack of employment opportunities in the town which has suffered from the general disadvantage that has affected Border communities. I commend the local community, those working in statutory agencies locally and the teachers who ensured they provided the best possible education for the children under their care. The DEIS designation at primary level is valuable and the school in Belturbet has submitted a strong application which meets all of the criteria laid down by the Department. According to previous correspondence with the Minister, decisions will be made at the end of quarter 1 this year. I appeal to the Minister of State to convey a strong message to the Minister who I appreciate cannot be present owing to other commitments. However, I ask the Minister of State to convey to him the strong case I have made and ensure every aspect of the application submitted by the board of management will be given detailed and favourable consideration. The community does not look for handouts. It is seeking support to enhance the school environment for all of the children. I hope the Minister of State will have positive news on the application.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and apologise on behalf of the Minister who cannot be present. I discussed the issue with him earlier and he is very much aware of it from the correspondence he has received from the Deputy. He is sorry he cannot be present, but I will make sure to convey to him the additional information provided by the Deputy.

DEIS is the main policy initiative of the Department of Education and Skills to address educational disadvantage at school level. DEIS Plan 2017 published in February last year introduced a more robust and responsive framework for assessing levels of disadvantage in schools and set out details of an updated DEIS school support programme. The DEIS identification process uses data from the following sources: Central Statistics Office small area population statistics, as represented in the Pobal small area HP deprivation index, combined with centrally held data from the Department's primary and post-primary online databases as provided by schools. This new approach removes the administrative burden on schools to provide socioeconomic data for their pupil cohorts and ensures consistency and uniformity in the assessment process for all primary and post-primary schools. The system is also responsive to demographic changes in schools, with the capacity to update school data on an annual basis from the school annual census returns and socioeconomic data every five years following the CSO national census of population. This development was strongly called for by stakeholders during the review of the DEIS programme undertaken by the Department in which I was involved at the time.

The initial application of the model assessed all schools and found that most schools had pupils from disadvantaged areas but that the concentration of disadvantage varied significantly. It is important to note that the Department's assessment is not based on the location of the school but on the CSO small areas statistics from which a school derives its pupil cohort. Accordingly, the demographics of neighbouring schools can differ in terms of assessed levels of need which are based on the pupil cohort within each school. Following the initial application of the identification process, 79 additional schools were brought into the programme, while a further 30 existing DEIS schools were identified for increased levels of support with effect from September 2017. An updating of the identification model is under way and will take account of data provided by schools for the current school year, combined with the Pobal HP index of deprivation, based on census 2016. It is envisaged that the process will be completed by the end of quarter 1 this year, or in a month's time. If the exercise reveals that any school meets the criteria applicable to schools with the highest concentrations of disadvantage, it may be included, subject to available resources. It is also important to note that all schools, including the Convent of Mercy, Belturbet, have available to them a range of supports provided by the Department to meet the identified additional educational needs of their pupil cohorts. They include additional teaching and other resources to meet special educational needs, language and behavioural supports and educational psychological supports. Further services provided by the Professional Development Service for Teachers are also available to support teachers and school leaders in the delivery of teaching and learning in schools.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. The 2016 census demonstrated through the measurement of the levels of disadvantage that all areas of Belturbet fell into either the marginally below average or very disadvantaged category. That represented a deterioration in comparison to the position following the 2006 census. The Pobal map shows that the largest population currently resides in the most disadvantaged area of Belturbet. It is an area of significant disadvantage. One good initiative undertaken by the education and training board in recent years through the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in partnership with the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Youth Work Ireland was the introduction of an intervention programme designed to target older children deemed to be at risk. The programme is necessary and worthwhile.

The Department has classified the school incorrectly in that it is included in the rural instead of the urban classification. That is a misreading of the position at official level. That the school should have urban status is demonstrated by the fact that it is a participant in the non-statutory school meals local project scheme which is funded by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. A school has to have urban status to be included in the scheme. There is a difference in designation between the two Departments. It is a small town school which should have urban status. On its own initiative, the school established the role of home-school liaison officer in 1997. Even at the time, it recognised the need to provide additional support for children and families. All of these factors should be taken into consideration.

The principal, Ms Breege Flynn, and her staff would not look for something unless it was needed, nor would the chairman or members of the board of management or the parents association. The school community works in the best interests of the children and the local community. I would not table a Topical Issues matter unless I thought the application merited serious, urgent and favourable consideration. I appreciate that the Minister of State will speak to the Minister about the application, but I appeal to him to do so in the strongest terms.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I acknowledge the Deputy's integrity and genuineness in bringing forward this issue which I know is close to its heart. I recognise the work principals do with boards of management, parents associations and the local community to fight for resources for their schools. The Deputy is correct that they generally do so only when they know that they need them. The new process in place will examine applications objectively. I will convey the Deputy's clear message to the Minister, in particular, on the issue of the urban-rural classification. I will raise the issue because it is important.

When the data have been assessed, the analysis will be beneficial in making decisions. For the first time, the Department has introduced an objective statistics-based model for deciding which schools merit inclusion in the DEIS programme in order that all stakeholders will have confidence that additional resources are being targeted at the schools identified as having the highest concentrated levels of disadvantage. The schools included in the programme, with effect from September 2017, are the ones which have been identified as having the highest concentrations of disadvantage among their pupil cohorts.

The schools that have not been included at this stage, and which include the Convent of Mercy national school, Belturbet, County Cavan, which Deputy Smith has just raised, are those which have not been identified as having the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage among their pupil cohort under the new identification model. It is also important to note that this is the first step in a process, and the fact that a school has not been included now does not preclude its inclusion at a later date if the Department's assessment indicates a level of disadvantage that warrants inclusion in the programme. With the analysis at the moment and the additional information the Deputy has provided, I will make sure this case is looked into and I will raise it on his behalf with the Minister, Deputy Bruton.