Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I understand the Minister, Deputy Foley, is not present but as the Minister of State is the representative of the Government today, I must tell him I do not see the timeline in the response. Is there a timeline for when we are going to see the identification model being completed? When is that? Is it going to be as a result of the census? Is that the reason it has been held back? These schools and these children are at concentrated levels of educational disadvantage. The last amount allocated funding under this programme was in 2017. It is crucial we allow even the smallest of supports. How can the Department of Social Protection allocate hot meals programmes to schools outside of DEIS? How can it justify that when it knows others schools are at a higher level of disadvantage? How is it going to do that? The Department of Social Protection cannot do it until the Department of Education decides we have got an actual model it can use for the allocation of schools into DEIS. We do not have that right now and I see no timeline in the Minister of State's reply for when it is going to happen.