Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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402. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a school (details supplied) will be included in the new DEIS Plus scheme for schools. [15277/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Tackling educational disadvantage and supporting students to fulfil their full potential in life is a key priority for me as Minister for Education and Youth. The DEIS programme is a key policy of Government to tackle concentrated educational disadvantage at school level.

The DEIS programme provides schools with a targeted range of supports and is additional to the universal supports provided to all schools. My department is investing over €180 million annually to provide additional supports to almost 1,200 schools in the programme.

Within the DEIS programme, 306 primary schools with the highest concentrations of children at risk of educational disadvantage are included in DEIS Urban Band 1. These schools receive the highest level of support available. This includes a more favourable staffing allocation, DEIS grant funding and access to the Home School Community Liaison scheme and the School Completion Programme.

The recent OECD Review of Resourcing Schools to Address Educational Disadvantage in Ireland highlighted the role of the DEIS programme in providing an education system that consistently outperforms many other OECD countries but also exhibits relative socio-economic fairness, making it one of the stronger performers globally. However, the review also highlighted that important differences in outcomes persist for students who experience high levels of deprivation.

As Minister, I am determined to close the performance gap between DEIS and non-DEIS schools and introduce more innovative solutions to tackle disadvantage. Part of delivering this objective will be through the introduction of a new DEIS plus scheme in line with the Programme for Government commitment to support schools with the highest levels of disadvantage.

The introduction of DEIS plus will build on progress which has been made in recent years, including the targeted expansion of the DEIS programme which benefitted 361 schools, as well as the introduction of the free schoolbooks and the free hot school meals schemes as universal measures that will support children and young people at risk of educational disadvantage in both DEIS and non-DEIS schools.

My department has engaged with principals from a number of schools and has heard about the barriers to education faced by children from areas of high intergenerational disadvantage. I have asked my department to intensify its engagement with other government departments and agencies, the education partners, and stakeholders across the education sector to develop a plan for a DEIS plus scheme that will address these barriers, within an overall work programme to tackle educational disadvantage.