Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 March 2022
62. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Education if she will report on the roll-out of the expansion of Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS; and if she will meet with Opposition Deputies to provide an update on this expansion. [13480/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe announcement regarding DEIS arrived yesterday. It is a very important programme that has cross-party support. It has huge potential to make major differences to many children's lives. I very much welcome the schools that were added to that, including several in my own constituency. Of course, like any process such as this, there will always be schools that missed out and are disappointed. St. Maries of The Isle primary school in my constituency made a strong case for an upgrade to DEIS band 1. I understand schools will be able to appeal this decision. When will these appeals open? How can schools apply?
I was very pleased yesterday to be able to announce a major expansion of the DEIS programme. For the first time, we are now seeing a considerable expansion of the programme, which will mean that a significant number of schools will benefit from the €32 million investment. In fact, it will mean that 310 schools will be provided for in the DEIS programme, which will mean that 25% of our schools are part of the programme, facilitating almost 250,000 or one in four students.
Currently, 884 schools and more than 180,000 students benefit from the DEIS programme. As I said, the additions are significant in terms of moving that forward. Supports will be provided to these schools, including a DEIS grant and additional schoolbook grant funding, access to the home school community liaison scheme, access to the school completion programme and priority access to continuous professional development for teachers.
Schools have been identified for inclusion in the programme, and this is important, through the refined DEIS identification model, which is an objective, statistics-based model. This model uses information from the Department of Education enrolment databases and the Pobal HP deprivation index. Schools were not required to apply for inclusion in the DEIS programme and the model has been applied fairly and equally to all schools.
The extension of the DEIS programme to additional schools follows intensive work by the DEIS technical group, which involved valuable input from stakeholders. The refined DEIS identification model builds on the objectivity and fairness of the 2017 version, but now captures a greater breadth of disadvantage and accounts for severity of disadvantage through the application of a weighted process.
It also takes consideration of the significant educational disadvantage experienced by Traveller and Roma learners and students residing in direct provision or emergency homeless accommodation. Using this approach, we can extend the additional targeted supports of the DEIS programme to those schools serving high concentrations of students at risk of educational disadvantage.
I understand that the Minister needs to put these things on the record, but I hope that in her next contribution, she might be able tell us more about the appeals process. As I have said, there will be schools that are disappointed.
The other issue is that the appeals process needs to be a bit more dynamic, perhaps, than the existing process. We are dealing with five-year-old information. When there is an appeal, schools should have the opportunity to put forward things that might have changed in that period or that the criteria might not have taken into account. I raised this at the meeting yesterday. If there are now additional social housing turnkeys in an area, or there has been an increase in the provision of housing assistance payment, HAP, in the area, such things would change the circumstance.
The other issue I will raise with the Minister is co-operation with the Department of Social Protection. We need to get to a stage where every DEIS school has hot meals. We are a distance away from that. Obviously, the hot meals programme has expanded but we are a distance away from it. Will the Minister work towards that as an objective?
I want to finish on the appeals process. I acknowledge that many schools were very pleased yesterday. The Deputy was gracious enough to include a reference to the schools in his constituency. I also appreciate there were schools that did not make the DEIS status yesterday.
I want to be very clear that the model employed, that is, the Pobal HP deprivation index, is very clear and transparent in respect of categorising what we are talking about or referring to in terms of compounded disadvantage, which highlights those schools where the greatest level of disadvantage is being experienced. Those were the schools that were successful yesterday. Notwithstanding that, there will almost certainly be an appeals process. The Department is committed to ensuring that all schools are treated equally and fairly in the manner in which they have been assessed for inclusion in the programme. If a school considers that it should have been identified for inclusion in the programme under the refined model, an appeals process has been developed to allow it to seek a review. That will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.
I hope the Minister can tell us more about that as the process goes on.
The Minister also raised the issue of stakeholders. There needs to be a sea change in how the Minister and her Department show co-operation and partnership across the Dáil. We first contacted the Minister on 26 April 2021, which is almost a year ago now, because we wanted to work with her on the new DEIS model.
We have written to the Minister, or an official in her Department, 11 times since then. I raised this again with the Minister in the Dáil on 23 September, 13 October, 20 October, 25 January and 1 February and asked for a meeting, but throughout all that time the meeting was not forthcoming.
There has been such a level of non-co-operation, to be frank, that I had to resort to a freedom of information request to get basic information on how the DEIS allocation was progressing. The meeting yesterday, while it was welcome, was happening while the decision was ultimately made. I asked the Minister how many schools were included in DEIS band 1. The Minister said the process will evolve and that she will keep us posted. The Minister had the list. It is not good enough. She talks about stakeholders and co-operation but the stakeholders on this side of the House had no role in it. What is done is done but I want to see a serious improvement in how we co-operate across the floor.
I ask the Minister to conclude.
I thank the Deputy. I want to be very clear at the outset that the consultation actually predated me. There has been and, even in my own term, there continues to be engagement with the partners in education and the stakeholders of education.
Not these ones.
I am not finished yet. I gave an absolute commitment to the Deputy that he would be fully briefed in advance of me making any public announcement in relation to DEIS. That was facilitated yesterday. It was facilitated by experts and by officials from my own Department. Indeed, I was there also.
On the availability of information, every step of the way the information has been made available through parliamentary questions, etc. about the model and the work that was ongoing at that time. In fairness, we have benefited greatly from the stakeholder engagements with the managerial bodies and the teaching unions, etc. in the entire process. In fairness, in terms of all the other operations in the Department of Education, the Deputy has been involved. I did give the commitment that he would be fully briefed and informed of what was happening prior to any public announcement-----
I did not want to be just briefed. I wanted to play a part. I wanted to help.
-----and that the model would be perfectly and expertly explained to him. All of that did happen in advance of any public announcement.
That is not good enough.
Please, can we let the Minister respond uninterrupted?
