Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In response to Deputy Murphy, an extensive consultation was carried out in regard to the OECD review and it met with school leaders, teachers, parents, student organisations, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Children's Rights Alliance and Social Justice Ireland. It was broad and comprehensive. I agree with the three Deputies. Deputy McAuliffe made the point that we should be looking at all of our manifestoes for the general election and making sure this issue crosses the line, if any of us are in a position to negotiate a programme for government after the election. That is very important.

Second, a point was raised about the work already under way in DEIS urban band 1 with regard to access to home-school liaison co-ordinators and enhanced access to NEPS and the school completion programme. All of that backs up what the Deputies are saying. There is also the model of the north-east inner-city multidisciplinary teams, which seem to have worked quite well, and the consideration by the Department to expand that. That includes NEPS, the Department of Education, the HSE, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and psychologists. It is the multidisciplinary team that the Deputies have been speaking about in the context of a potential DEIS+ programme. In the response I gave earlier, the Department said that multidisciplinary team intervention could be expanded past the ten schools where it has already been set up in the north-east inner-city.

The potential is there. Collectively, we have to look at this in light of the fact we are at the end of a cycle of government. We need to look towards our own manifestoes to ensure we specify DEIS+ in those manifestoes and then look towards a programme for government thereafter.

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