Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, DEIS and non-DEIS, to support the inclusion of all students and address barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing these universal supports, the DEIS programme provides a targeted and equitable way to address concentrated educational disadvantage that promotes equity and has benefits for students.

My Department now spends approximately €180million annually providing additional supports to 1,200 schools in the DEIS programme. This includes an additional €32m allocated following my announcement to extend the programme to an additional 322 schools from last September. This now means that approximately 240,000 students or 1 in 4 of all students are now supported in the programme.

Within the DEIS programme, the highest levels of resources are targeted at those primary schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage. Schools in this category are accorded DEIS Urban Band 1 status. There are currently 306 primary schools in DEIS Urban Band 1, including 79 primary schools who were included in the band for the first time last September as part of the extension of the programme. Schools in this band receive a more beneficial staffing schedule, home school community liaison support as well as access to the school completion and school meals programmes. Schools in DEIS Urban Band 1 also receive a DEIS grant that reflects the schools’ high levels of educational disadvantage and priority access to the support of the National Educational Psychologists Service (NEPS).

My Department is continuing to undertake work towards achieving its vision for an inclusive education system which supports all learners to achieve their potential. It also recognises that we need to target resources to those schools who need them most. That is why my Department has undertaken a programme of work to explore the allocation of resources to schools to address educational disadvantage. To support this work my Department have invited the OECD Strength Through Diversity: Education for Inclusive Societies Project to review the current policy approach for the allocation of resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage in Ireland. This review will provide an independent expert opinion on the current resource allocation model for the DEIS programme and, drawing on international examples, inform a policy approach for an equitable distribution of supplementary resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage attending all schools, both DEIS and non-DEIS.

The OECD review will be complimented by a programme of work by my Department which will look at reviewing individual resources and allocation approaches. This work will consider the allocation of resources within the DEIS programme. It will also seek to ensure that schools are supported to ensure every child has an equal opportunity to achieve their potential.

I am aware of the proposal referred to by the Deputy. In the context of the ongoing work in my Department in relation to resource allocation to address educational disadvantage, officials from my Department met with a number of the principals involved in the proposal last week. The officials noted the barriers many children in their schools face, preventing them achieving their potential in education. My officials noted the efforts and initiatives the schools have put in place to support those most vulnerable children in their schools in order to provide them with an equal opportunity to learn. The information provided from that meeting, together with consultations with other stakeholders, will inform my Department’s work in this area as it continues to develop.