John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I empathise with the Senator's comments. I do not say that to be compassionate. I understand the difficulty is that criteria were laid down for all schools to be included in DEIS and the school did not participate in the process. The school was also informed that there was an appeals mechanism in place but it did not even participate in that part of the process. I do not know why what was the case. The school was informed that an application had not been submitted and that an appeals process was in place, when it was not included, but it did not participate. Perhaps we need to know the reason for that but it is neither here or there.

The school does not have to reapply because an identification process is being undertaken. Based on what the Senator has said, which I believe, if the school meets the criteria, no assessment will have to be done. I see no reason it should not be included. I ask the Senator to meet with me in a few weeks, and if she wants to bring a representative from the school I would be delighted to meet that person. We can go through this and see if we can push it forward. If what the Senator is saying, which I completely believe, is that the school should be included then it should be. We must go past what happened and whatever errors were made in the school. The Senator is completely correct; if an error was made, or a misjudgment was made by an individual, the rest of the school should not suffer. I accept this and there is no point in me saying otherwise. I ask the Senator to bear with me for a couple of weeks, then meet me, and if she wants to bring somebody from the school I would be delighted to meet that person, to see whether we can push this forward.