Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The new DEIS programme is designed to ensure that schools serving the most disadvantaged communities benefit from the maximum level of support available. Over the years, no less than 8 separate schemes for disadvantaged primary schools have been put in place. Some schools were benefiting from just one or two of these and others were benefiting from more. The DEIS initiative is designed to ensure that the most disadvantaged schools benefit from a comprehensive package of supports.

While the whole rationale behind the new programme is to ensure that the most disadvantaged schools benefit from all of the available supports, schools that are benefiting from existing schemes will keep the extra resources — financial and human — that they are getting under these initiatives for the 2006/07 school year. After that they will continue to get support in line with the level of socio-economic disadvantage among their pupils.

In relation to how schools were identified to benefit from the new programme, this process was managed by the Educational Research Centre (ERC) on behalf of my Department and supported by quality assurance work co-ordinated through the Department's regional offices and the Inspectorate. In the primary sector, the identification process was based on a survey carried out by the ERC in May 2005, from which a response rate of more than 97% was achieved.

The analysis of the survey returns from primary schools by the ERC identified the socio-economic variables that collectively best predict achievement, and these variables were then used to identify schools for participation in the School Support Programme. The variables involved were: % unemployment, % local authority accommodation, % lone parenthood, % Travellers, % large families (5 or more children) % pupils eligible for free books. A review process has been put in place for primary and second-level schools that did not qualify for participation in the new School Support Programme (SSP) and that regard themselves as having a level of disadvantage which is of a scale sufficient to warrant their inclusion in the Programme. The review process will operate under the direction of an independent person, charged with ensuring that all relevant identification processes and procedures were properly followed in the case of schools applying for a review. The closing date for receipt of review applications was Friday 31st March, 2006. The school to which the Deputy refers has submitted an application for review and a formal acknowledgement has issued to the school. It is anticipated that the review process will be completed before the end of the current school year.