Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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339. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if consideration will be given by her Department to reclassifying a school (details supplied) as DEIS1 from its current status as DEIS2 due to the fact that it is an inner-city school and this status would be more appropriate given the demographics of the students attending the school; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60413/21]

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 to additional schools.

This 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. The refined model is an objective, statistics based process, based on school enrolment data and data available from Census 2016 under the HP Deprivation Index. It is important to note that there is no application process for the DEIS programme and all schools, including the school referred to by the Deputy, will be considered when it is applied.

This work involved an initial process of consultation by my Department with the education partners on the technical aspects of the model. Over the coming weeks there will be further consultation with relevant stakeholders to outline the components 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.