Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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167. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if in the context of a review of the DEIS programme eligibility, he will ensure that a school (details supplied) has its status changed to urban band 1 from its current status of rural; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40690/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We have, for the first time, put in place an objective statistics based model for which schools are assessed for inclusion in DEIS, so that all stakeholders can have confidence that we are targeting extra resources at areas of greatest need.

This model uses data supplied by schools to my Department's Primary and Post Primary Online Databases and CSO Small Area of Population statistics from the National Census of Population as represented by the Pobal HP Deprivation Index. Variables used in the compilation of the HP Index include those related to demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parent rate, overcrowding, social class, occupation and unemployment rates. This data is applied uniformly to all schools in the country in a fair and objective way, to identify the relative level of concentrated disadvantage present in each school.An information note detailing the methodology adopted, including the designation of primary schools as urban or rural, is available on my Department’s website at