Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas for their assistance and support in recent years. I hope all the Deputies present will be back.

I am delighted the Minister of State at the Departments of Education and tourism and sport, Deputy Thomas Byrne, is with us. As this is the first opportunity I have had, I express my sincere thanks to him for the great work he has done with the sports capital programme and large-scale infrastructure programme. I am delighted that my county has been a major beneficiary of the sports capital programme allocations and also benefited from last week's announcement of €90 million in funding for the regional sports complex in Cavan. The complex will benefit all sporting disciplines and the wider region. That work will pay dividends for many generations to come.

The Minister of State will be fully aware, as are all Members of House, of the importance of the DEIS programme. He will recall many debates in our parliamentary party on the need to expand the programme. Thankfully, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, was in a position to include more schools in the DEIS programme.

The Minister of State has heard all of us raise cases where schools were not included. Far too often in our public administration, there is too much administrative inertia and inaction instead of changing policy as needs and society change. Far too often, decisions are made on outdated criteria. I am speaking particularly in respect of the request by those running Scoil Phádraig Naofa in Shercock, County Cavan. They have formally requested the Department again to be included in the DEIS programme. The school authorities have outlined in great detail to the Minister, Deputy Foley, that the school serves a community that faces significant challenges like many other communities throughout the country. The school community, the board of management, the principal and her staff and the parents' association believe that DEIS status would greatly enhance their ability to support even better their students and families. Many of the students in Shercock, as the Minister of State will know representing a neighbouring area, come from backgrounds where English is an additional language. This presents unique barriers to their educational success. Additionally, like every other community, a number of families face particular challenges. The school very actively engages with the education and welfare officer, NEPS, the ISPCC, An Garda Síochána, Tusla and CAMHS in the best interest of the pupils. The school seeks and enlists the support of all the bodies that work on a daily basis with our schools. The school is very strongly of the opinion that without the additional resources and targeted programmes that are available through DEIS, their efforts will only go so far. The school community, the teachers and their support staff, most of whom I know, work very hard on programmes and initiatives to improve attendance and ensure that the pupils attain their best academic achievements possible. They believe that so much more would be done for so many more pupils if the resources of the DEIS programme were available to them.

As I said at the outset, the Pobal index is used to assess the need for delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, status. It does not accurately reflect the situation at schools such as St. Patrick's in Shercock or the unique challenges students face in particular communities. The community in Shercock experiences high levels of mobility, with many families moving in and out as parents seek employment in nearby factories. Thankfully, there is huge employment in that particular area. This transient nature can lead to under-reporting in census data that may not capture the full extent of the needs of students who have recently moved to the area, particularly the additional demand on a student and parents in regard to their lack of proficiency in the English language. When DEIS was last reviewed, the pupils' eircodes were not even inputted to the primary online database at the time. The Department should give urgent consideration to the request of Scoil Phádraig Naofa to be included in the DEIS programme. All of us in this House could identify other schools but this particular case I am putting forward today is on behalf of St. Patrick's national school, Shercock which merits urgent consideration as per the detailed submission made by the school.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta Mhic Gabhann. Tá áthas orm an freagra seo a chur os a chomhair. Gabhaim buíochas leis as an mbuíochas a ghabh sé liom maidir leis an ionad spóirt i gContae an Chabháin. I was really happy to meet officials from Cavan GAA, LGFA and Camogie Association but also with Cavan County Council at the Deputy's request. I am delighted that the Department of sport was able to approve really massive funding, the second biggest in the country after Dalymount Park. It is what we want to see. We want to see local authorities and sporting organisations working together to provide facilities for all the people.

In respect of the topic at hand, the Department of Education 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. Universal supports are available to all schools to enable them to support students at risk of disadvantage. The Minister, Deputy Foley, has secured approximately €170 million in funding to provide free school books as a universal support to all primary and post-primary schools in the free education scheme. Since 2020, the Minister has provided three improvements to the teacher allocation schedule to allow for smaller class sizes in primary schools. As part of the capitation package in budget 2025, more than €30 million was secured as a permanent increase in capitation funding to help schools, now and longer term, with increased day-to-day running costs. This represents an increase of approximately 12% on current standard rates and enhanced rates. This increase is on top of the circa 9.2% increase from last year.

Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the DEIS programme is a key policy initiative of the Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and equitable way across the primary and post-primary sectors. The programme is targeted at schools with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage. Schools that were included in the programme in 2022 were those with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage as identified through the refined DEIS identification model. Schools were not required to apply for inclusion in the DEIS programme and the model was applied fairly and equally to all schools.

The extension of the programme to new schools is just one component of work in the Minister’s vision for an inclusive education system. While the DEIS programme supports those schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage, the Minister also recognises that there are students at risk of disadvantage in all schools. The Minister invited the OECD Education for Inclusive Societies project to review the current policy approach for the allocation of resources to support students at risk of disadvantage in Ireland. This review was published this year, and it found that while Ireland has a comparatively equitable education system, and the DEIS programme is a key instrument in that, gaps remain. The review finds that Ireland has an education system that consistently outperforms many other OECD countries but also exhibits relative socioeconomic fairness, making it one of the stronger performers globally. It also recognises the positive impact of resources provided universally to all schools, as well as the additional resources provided to schools in the DEIS programme, in addressing disadvantage. The review also highlights continued improvements over the past decade in retention and attainment levels between children and young people in DEIS and non-DEIS schools. It notes that, even with these improvements, important differences in outcomes persist between DEIS and non-DEIS schools and for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and Travellers and Roma. This information and data has also informed the Traveller and Roma education strategy, published in July. The findings and recommendations of the OECD review will help inform future policy in the area of addressing educational disadvantage.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State sincerely for his response. The model in Cavan relating to the large-scale infrastructure sports application had Cavan County Council, Cavan GAA and the Royal School collaborating and putting forward a project that brought the entire community together. It is extremely important in all walks of life. We could learn from having more collaboration across sectors, sports, etc.

I very much appreciate what the Minister for Education did. I know from school authorities who speak to their local public representatives about the benefits DEIS has brought in extra teaching resources and supports that are made available for children. We have an excellent community in Shercock. Thankfully, there is massive employment in the town, catering for a big area. We have a community with a very good football club that has great facilities. We also have an athletics club that is renowned throughout Ireland’s athletic community for the quality of its facilities. People have again worked very hard to put those facilities in place and ensure people are accommodated and given an opportunity to participate in their particular sport, in this case, athletics.

That community wants to ensure, as does the leadership in the primary school, that all children are given the best opportunity to reach their best educational attainment. We all know how impactive a good primary school education is for the future of children. In this case, where there is huge mobility and so many families whose first language is not English and additional challenges arise, consideration must be given to the inclusion of such schools in the DEIS programme. I again make the point that far too often we make decisions based on outdated strategies. A strategy may be very progressive and forward looking but things change much more rapidly in Ireland today than they ever did in the past, given the movement of people and the increase in population. There are new challenges that perhaps were not there ten or 12 years ago. The DEIS programme is of great benefit to so many pupils, schools and school communities throughout the country.

Its expansion in the future would be a very good day's work. Along with the Minister of State's work in the Department of tourism, sport and media, I compliment him also on his work in the Department of Education as Aire Stáit.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat. Over the coming months, the Department of Education, with other education agencies and partners and other Departments and State agencies, will work to develop tangible actions informed by the recommendations set out in the OECD review. This will include consultation with school communities and St. Patrick's National School in Shercock would be very welcome to participate in this process. These actions will aim to build on the success of the DEIS programme, which, as the Deputy knows, is a key achievement of Fianna Fáil in government whereby we have laid down strong foundations. Nevertheless, he is correct. The country needs us to move forward, adapt to the changes and bring forward enhanced policies to reflect the changing Ireland. I fully agree with the Deputy and have no doubt that, if he returns to the Dáil, this will be a top priority of his as well.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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That is a big challenge for me. All the other sitting TDs in the Cavan-Monaghan constituency are safe except me.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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That is certainly one the Deputy wants to get out.