Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)
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Question 90: To ask the Minister for Education and Science, further to her reply to Parliamentary Question No. 103 of 24 October 2006, if she will provide a list of the 670 primary schools and 203 second level schools that have been invited to participate in the new school support programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28469/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools), the action plan for educational inclusion, provides for a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage and a new integrated School Support Programme (SSP). DEIS will bring together and build upon a number of existing interventions in schools with a concentrated level of disadvantage.

The process of identifying schools for participation in DEIS was managed by the Educational Research Centre (ERC) on behalf of my Department and supported by quality assurance work co-ordinated through the Departmentâ€TMs regional offices and the Inspectorate. The identification process involved a survey of primary schools conducted by the Educational Research Centre in May, 2005 and the updating by them of existing data sources on levels of disadvantage in second-level schools. Details of the schools included in the School Support Programme under DEIS are in the tables below. They are also available on my Departmentâ€TMs website.

The Department has put in place separate arrangements for new and newly amalgamated primary schools established since 2005. The website list of schools in the SSP will be revised shortly to include new and newly amalgamated schools that are identified for inclusion in the programme.