Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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242. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the total number of DEIS appeals that have been received by county and location; the reason for refusals in tabular form; the mechanism by which a school can be independently reviewed after a failed review if it disagrees with the appeal; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [63094/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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In March I announced a major expansion of the DEIS – Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools programme. This announcement meant that, for the first time since 2017, the programme is being significantly expanded and eligible schools will now gain access to targeted supports to address educational disadvantage. This will add an additional €32million to the Department’s expenditure on the DEIS programme from 2023, bringing the 2023 allocation to a total of in the region of €180million. Schools were identified for inclusion in the programme through the refined DEIS identification model which is an objective, statistics based model. Schools were not required to apply for inclusion in the DEIS programme and the model has been applied fairly and equally to all schools.

My Department is committed to ensuring that all schools are treated equally and fairly in the manner in which they have been identified for inclusion in the DEIS programme. Schools which were not satisfied with the outcome following the application of the DEIS identification model to their school enrolment data were provided with the opportunity to have that outcome reviewed.

Circular 0019/2022, available on the gov.ie website, outlined the details of this appeals process. The appeals process offered schools the opportunity to review their school enrolment data which they had submitted to my Department and to improve its accuracy if necessary. Schools had until 5pm on Friday April 29th to submit an appeal. Appeals were received from 197 schools (148 primary and 49 post primary schools) out of 3832 mainstream primary and post primary schools in Ireland, indicating that just under 95% of schools were satisfied with the process. All appeals submitted were processed by my Department and schools have been notified of the outcome.

Following the completion of the DEIS appeals review, an additional 11 primary and 1 post-primary school were included in the DEIS programme from September 2022. An additional 4 schools were reclassified as Urban Band 1. Full details of the schools to be included in the DEIS programme from September 2022 are available on the gov.ie website.

The DEIS identification process is based on the principle of concentrated disadvantage and the proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds within a school. The DEIS identification model aimed to identify those schools with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage or the highest proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds within a school using the school's enrolment data and national census data as represented by the Pobal HP Deprivation index, which is publicly available. A detailed paper on the refined DEIS identification model is available on gov.ie at www.gov.ie/en/publication/a3c9e-extension-of-deis-to-further-schools/#how-schools-were-selected-for-inclusion-in-deis

The DEIS appeals process was applied fairly across all appellants and the results are final. The Department of Education will continue to support schools to deliver high quality, inclusive teaching and learning to students and young learners.

Following the National Census 2022 held on the 3rd April last, it is envisaged that an updated HP Deprivation Index will be generated by Pobal and will be available in Quarter 3 of 2023. My Department will engage with Pobal in relation to this process. The updated HP Deprivation Index when available can be considered by my Department to inform future resource allocation to tackle educational disadvantage.