Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to discuss this matter as there are a number of things about which she is simply wrong and which I need to correct. I must ensure people understand what is happening. If there are two schools side by side and one has DEIS status, that relates back to the old scheme. There are 836 schools included in the old scheme and the problem is that it was quite random about how schools were included. Sometimes it was left entirely to the principal to submit material. The scheme was drawn up in a haphazard way. Some schools did not bother to apply, while others were very diligent. The designation that resulted was arbitrary. What we are now doing is adopting a scientific approach. It is not based on postcodes as the Senator suggested but on a small area analysis conducted by the CSO. It takes the children enrolled in a school and looks at the small area in which they are located. It is related to the disadvantage associated with the area from which the pupils come. It is not the area where the school is located but the area from which the pupils are drawn. Typically, one will have a high concentration of pupils from the area relatively close to the school and it may be a designated disadvantaged area as demonstrated by an examination of lone parents, population trends, parental education status, unemployment levels and occupations. It is an established, statistical method of assessing disadvantage and we are using the statistical source from the CSO. It is based on the census. We also marry the information with the actual pupil enrolment figures. The advantage is that we can update the information on a continuous basis and look at new census information and changing enrolments in the school. It is entirely objective and goes right back to the areas from which pupils are drawn.

The Senator is right that I would love to be able to extend the scheme, but I was able to include 79 schools. In rough terms, we might say that is two per constituency.