Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairperson. As ever, it is great to be here.

I thank Senator Carrigy for tabling this important matter for discussion today. I apologise on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Foley, who is not here because she is at a Cabinet meeting. She asked me to take this matter on her behalf. I will certainly make sure she gets the message and also the figures and statistics the Senator presented.

As Senator Carrigy will be aware, DEIS is the main policy instrument of the Department of Education to tackle educational disadvantage at school level, which is done through the DEIS programme. On March 9 last, the Minister for Education announced a major expansion of the DEIS programme. This will add an additional €32 million to the Department’s expenditure on the programme from 2023, bringing the total 2023 allocation to approximately €180 million.

One of the supports available under DEIS is access to the home school community liaison, HSCL, scheme. The HSCL scheme seeks to establish partnership and collaboration between parents, teachers and the community in the interests of education. The HSCL scheme aims to help parents to engage in their children’s education and build parents' capacity so that they are enabled to support and contribute to their children’s successful experience in the education system.

Currently, all DEIS urban primary and DEIS post-primary schools are included in the HSCL scheme. Under the DEIS programme, the HSCL scheme is delivered by 528 full-time HSCL co-ordinators who are teachers in these schools and assigned to HSCL duties either in individual schools or clusters of schools. The HSCL co-ordinator posts are full-time posts. Some of the posts are allocated on a shared basis between a number of DEIS schools in cluster groups and these posts can be shared across the two sectors both at primary and post-primary level. This is an arrangement that happens nationally with all HSCLs and takes into account the relative disadvantage across schools.

The Department of Education has received representations from the schools in County Longford mentioned by Senator Carrigy today and has responded accordingly. The Department is open to making modifications to the current clusters in place if it is proven to be in the best interests of the schools involved and if all the parties are in agreement. This could be done within the existing current cohort of HSCLs already allocated in County Longford. As it stands, there are no further resources at present to extend the HSCL allocations such that each school would receive a full post.

The Department is committed to supporting schools to deliver high-quality inclusive teaching and learning to students and young learners and has already indicated that it is open to engagement on the matter outlined with regard to the arrangements between individual schools. Any further expansion of the HSCL scheme to allocate additional posts could only be considered in the context of further budgetary allocations. The Senator made the point that they need to be allocated for September. That is probably part of the budget negotiations that will bring us into the end of September, however. I will certainly make that case to the Minister and the Department. In the meantime, they could work with that cohort and come up with some arrangements in that regard. The Senator made a strong case that Longford would need extra resources. I will certainly make sure that message is brought back.