Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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118. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of designating ten, 20, 30, 40 and 50 schools as DEIS band 2, in tabular form. [46751/19]

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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119. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of designating ten, 20, 30, 40 and 50 schools as DEIS band 1, in tabular form. [46752/19]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 118 and 119 together.

In 2019 my Department will spend in the region of €125 million on the 891 schools participating in the programme. Further expenditure is incurred by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection on the School Meals Programme and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on the School Completion Programme. The full list of supports available to DEIS schools is available on my Department's website at the following link www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/DEIS-Delivering-Equality-of-Opportunity-in-Schools-/deis-supports-to-deis-schools-effective-from-2017-2018-school-year.pdf.

It is not possible to definitively provide the total cost of designating a further group of schools as Band 1 or Band 2 as the costs will vary from school to school depending on enrolment and the levels of disadvantage in individual schools.

In the 2019/20 school year, the spend on DEIS is spread across 891 schools participating in the DEIS Programme. The composition is as follows:

Primary Urban Band 1 - 231

Primary Urban Band 2 - 104

Primary Rural - 358

Post Primary - 198

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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120. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of reopening applications for DEIS band 2 and designating DEIS band 2 existing schools that would meet the criteria at present. [46753/19]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, following the review of DEIS, my Department introduced an objective, statistics based model for assessing which schools merit inclusion in the DEIS Programme, which does not require schools to go through an application process. All schools at both Primary and Post Primary level are being assessed using the new identification model.  

My Department is currently undertaking data analysis in the context of resource allocation to match identified need.. This analysis is being carried out by members of the DEIS Technical Group which contains representatives of the Department’s Statistics and Social Inclusion Units, the Inspectorate and the Educational Research Centre. Work is ongoing by this group and significant progress has been made. I am confident that the culmination of this analysis will facilitate the ultimate aim of matching resources to identified need and will allow us to target extra resources at those schools most in need. Until this analysis is complete, it is not intended to extend the DEIS programme to any further schools.  It is also not possible to estimate associated costs until this process is complete as costs depend on the levels of disadvantage and enrolments in individual schools and the level of resources to be provided.