Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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79. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her plans to expand the DEIS programme to additional schools in 2022 and 2023; the timeline for same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57189/21]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Budget 2022 has provided for an allocation of €18million for 2022 and €32million for 2023 to extend the DEIS programme to further schools with the highest levels of disadvantage. This represents an increase of over 20% in funding for the DEIS programme and will enable an expansion in 2022 of the programme to further schools.

This year my Department will spend in the region of €150million on providing supports for schools in the DEIS programme. The programme supports 884 schools and over 180,000 learners. My Department's investment includes providing for over 400 Home School Community Liaison coordinators, in the region of €16million in DEIS grants, additional posts for DEIS Band 1 primary schools, curriculum supports, enhanced book grants and access to the School Completion Programme.

This year's package follows an extensive body of work which has been under taken by the DEIS technical group in relation to the development of a model to identify the concentrated levels of disadvantage of schools.

This work involved an initial process of consultation by my Department with the education partners on the technical aspects of the model. The purpose is to ensure that, as far as possible, the refined DEIS identification model can provide an objective and independent means of identifying schools serving high concentrations of pupils at risk of educational disadvantage and also to ensure there is a full understanding of the refined model and its potential application.

The DEIS identification process under DEIS Plan 2017, is based on an objective, statistics based model to determine which schools merit inclusion in the programme. An extensive body of work has been under taken by the DEIS technical group in relation to developing the refined DEIS identification. The key data sources used in the DEIS identification process are the Department of Education (DE) Primary Online Database (POD) and Post-Primary Online (PPOD) Databases, and CSO data from the National Census of Population as represented in the Pobal HP Index for Small Areas which is a method of measuring the relative affluence or disadvantage of a particular geographical area.

It is important to note that schools are not required to apply for inclusion in the DEIS programme and that all schools will be considered under the refined model. It is also important to note that educational outcomes do not play any part in the identification of schools for inclusion in the DEIS programme either at primary or post primary level.

This additional funding has been secured to allow for additional supports to be provided to those schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage who are not currently in the DEIS programme and these schools will be the primary focus of my Department in relation to the extension of DEIS.