Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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83. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if there are proposals to extend the current Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4950/23]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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It is almost a year since the Minister made the welcome announcement that the DEIS programme was to be extended. The provision of those targeted supports to more schools will benefit a great many students. More than 240,000 students are now able to avail of DEIS supports. More than 1,200 schools are involved in the scheme. As the Minister will know, every Deputy has schools in his or her area that were disappointed not to be included in the extension. I sincerely hope that it will be possible to extend this very important programme further. The Minister did excellent work last year in extending it but more good work could be done with a further extension of this very important and worthwhile scheme, which benefits the most disadvantaged students.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge the Deputy's particular interest in the DEIS scheme. The Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, including DEIS schools and non-DEIS schools, to support the inclusion of all students and to address barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the DEIS programme is a key policy initiative of the Department to address concentrated - the word "concentrated" is key - educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and equitable way across the primary and post-primary sector.

As the Deputy has referenced, in March last year, I announced a major expansion of the DEIS programme. The programme was significantly expanded for the first time since 2017 and now covers an additional 322 schools. The programme now includes over 1,200 schools and supports approximately 240,000 students. This means one in every four of our students now benefits from DEIS programme supports. This recent expansion will add an additional €32 million to my Department’s expenditure on the DEIS programme from 2023, bringing the overall Department of Education allocation for the programme to €180 million.

I am very conscious of the benefits of the DEIS programme. Analysis has shown that, since the programme began in 2006, it has helped to close the gap in achievement between schools serving populations experiencing the highest levels of educational disadvantage and those serving populations with little or no disadvantage. It has provided children who come to education at a disadvantage with an equitable opportunity to achieve their potential in education.

The extension of the DEIS programme to new schools is just one component of work in my vision for an inclusive education system which supports all learners to achieve their potential. While the DEIS programme supports those schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage, I recognise that there are students at risk of educational disadvantage in all schools. Since June 2020 and over the past three budgets, I have secured funding to provide measures to support children in this regard. As part of budget 2023, as we referenced earlier, I announced over €50 million to provide schoolbooks and I reduced the pupil-teacher ratio to its lowest ever level, 23:1. This is a consequence of a reduction in each of the budgets I have presided over.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for her reply. I very much welcome her provision of additional funding for services to be provided universally to all students regardless of the particular school they attend. I previously discussed with the Minister two particular schools in Cavan that were excluded this time. I have detailed notes prepared and may talk to the Minister about those particular schools later today. It is hard for any of us to explain how the scheme works in centres where there are a number of primary schools. I think of one town where there are three primary schools - a boys' school, a girls' school and a Church of Ireland school. Children from the same family may go to two different schools, one of which is in the DEIS programme while the other is not. It is very hard to explain to a parent why her daughter is availing of the additional supports that come with DEIS status in her school while her son is not able to avail of the same additional educational provision in his. This also applies in towns where there is a school under the patronage of a minority church. I know of instances of children being transferred and of new entrants not going to the school they traditionally would have attended because of the extra attraction of another school being in the DEIS programme. We need to take account of situations in which there are a number of schools in one centre, not all of which are in the DEIS programme.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I will be clear. As I said, the key issue here is concentrated levels of disadvantage. I fully accept that there will always be children at risk of educational disadvantage in any school. I appreciate that. The specific supports that come with DEIS status are provided where there are concentrated levels of disadvantage. I accept the point the Deputy has raised about one school in a community receiving such status while another does not but, unless the exact same students with the exact same backgrounds attend both schools, there will not be the same level of concentration. That is the point. I am not for one minute suggesting that there are not students at risk of educational disadvantage in both of the schools in the area the Deputy referred to but it is the level of concentration that determines whether a school receives DEIS status.

Following the national census in 2022, which was held on 3 April last, it is envisaged that an updated Haase-Pratschke, HP, deprivation index will be generated by Pobal. That will be available in the third quarter of 2023. The Department will engage with Pobal in respect of this process. The updated HP deprivation index will inform the variety of different layers of support we may be able to offer schools.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister may recall that, a year or more ago, I raised with her and the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, the whole area of special education provision. I compliment the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, on the progress that has been made in ensuring a substantial expansion in the provision of special education. At that time, I questioned whether the input of the local inspector or cigire was factored into planning. Years ago, the views of the local inspector, who covered a county or half a county, were critical in determining future plans with regard to both the provision of accommodation and the level of teaching support for schools. Is the role of the inspector critical in assessments for the DEIS programme? We can have algorithms and censuses but there is nothing to beat up-to-date local knowledge as to the needs of the local school community. I am a firm believer in ensuring that the knowledge of the local inspector is factored into all decision-making by the Department.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I will first complete my answer on the question of educational disadvantage. I am very conscious of the need to ensure supports across all schools because there are children at risk of educational disadvantage across all schools. It is for this reason that, as I stated earlier, we have introduced a variety of different measures, including measures with regard to the pupil-teacher ratio, a free books scheme at a cost of more than €50 million, a pilot programme of counselling services in our primary schools and so on. As a consequence of the new HP index being formulated, the next phase of work will begin within my Department. We will look at a variety of types of supports that can be rolled out to schools to meet their needs. These may not necessarily involve DEIS status. There will be a kind of stepped system. There will be DEIS status, another step and then the next.

On the specific point the Deputy raised regarding special education, he will be aware of the role of the special educational needs organiser, SENO. Considerable additional resources have been made available to the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, to boost its work and the availability of SENOs to communicate with parents on the ground to obtain the fullest picture possible of the needs of the student, which the SENOs then filter back to the NCSE.