Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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492. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her views on delivering equality of opportunity in schools in 2014-2015. [38085/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools), the Action Plan for Educational Inclusion, was launched in 2005. DEIS is my Department's main policy initiative to tackle educational disadvantage. The aim of DEIS is to ensure that the educational needs of children and young people from disadvantaged communities are prioritised and effectively addressed.

DEIS is the subject of ongoing evaluation to ensure successful implementation and that the best possible approaches to measuring progress and outcomes at both local and national level are used. At a seminar in May of this year, my predecessor Deputy Quinn announced plans to commission one further piece of research in relation to DEIS which aims to collate all the evaluation work to date on the DEIS policy. This report will inform future policy development in relation to educational disadvantage, including the DEIS programme. A request for tender issued on August 1st 2014 and my officials are currently finalising this procurement process.

The current focus of my Department is on this ongoing evaluation and distilling the learning from the research to date while awaiting the outcome of the aforementioned report to inform future policy on educational disadvantage. My key priority is to continue to prioritise and target resources at schools with the most concentrated levels of disadvantage.

With regards to any additional schools joining DEIS, the current economic climate and the ongoing challenge to meet significant targets on reducing public expenditure means that there is no capacity to provide for the inclusion of additional schools in DEIS at this time.