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

The schools were selected on the basis of greatest disadvantage. It represents less than 2% of all schools. As such, I could paper the wall with the submissions received from people who say there is another school here and another school there which should have been considered. However, that is the reality. I would love to have more money to extend the scheme.

The Senator asked if there were schools outside the disadvantaged areas included in the old scheme which had a higher level of disadvantage.That is absolutely true. On this occasion I could only bring in at the very highest concentration of disadvantage in what was called the urban band 1. That was the cut-off point at which I introduced the 79 schools.

The issue raised by the Senator, which was raised by others in the media, on whether we should be dropping schools out of the scheme, I decided it would be unfair to pull the rug from under schools which had disadvantage status over time in a sudden move of this nature. We will look at all elements. For schools which felt they should have been in the scheme, we have a verification process. Around July we will be looking at the new census data, which will become available on a small area basis. We will be re-examining all schools, not just those which complained but every school in the country on an equal basis, and their current enrolment, the actual children and the new 2016 data. If there are schools which are shown to be at the highest levels of concentration, we will move to bring them in at the earliest point.

I have also indicated this is a model which I am trying to refine over time. I do not like the cliff edge, in or out approach which is a feature of this. I want to look at the instruments within the policy, as well as the needs of the school, to develop a more flexible model over time which will ensure a school's needs are responded to in the way that is most appropriate. That will take time to develop. I am also open to refining it if people want to see new criteria examined from the Central Statistics Office range of data. The ones it has selected, such as unemployment, occupation and education of parent, are the best predictors of educational disadvantage.

This is a journey. This has not been touched since 2009 and not one single school was brought into the scheme. Now we are bringing in some schools. I know there are plenty more which we could bring in but I hope over time we can. Over time, we will also have to transition out, as well as transition in, schools because that is the nature of this process.