Educational Disadvantage
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-14
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Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central

I am glad to see that we are on the same page with regard to following the child. To clarify, I do think DEIS has been extremely positive. However, it is not as positive as people thought it was going to be. When DEIS was brought in, people thought that schools would automatically become able to answer all the questions over time. They cannot because, as the Minister of State has rightly said, his Department is also responsible for intergenerational disadvantage. We cannot just pigeonhole this in the Department of Education and Youth. It has to be seen throughout Departments because, to deal with intergenerational disadvantage, we need to deal with intergenerational trauma. That is a very large thing. We in this country are only starting to understand how much it affects young people.
I am glad that the Minister of State mentioned the school completion programme. As I have said several times in here, I was a school completion co-ordinator for 18 years before I became a TD. I am very proud of that role. I would not like to see it eroded. I look forward to the Department finalising the employment and governance structure of the school completion programme, but that is for a different day.
DEIS plus should not only be about the funding it will bring.
The funding is vitally important, but it is about the services that are provided to children. The pupil-teacher ratio being reduced in DEIS schools, particularly in DEIS plus schools, is really important, as are multidisciplinary teams, which are able to go in to address specifically, not generally, the needs of children and young people and see where they are at. I do not want to see professionals coming in to tell teachers how to do it. Teachers are teachers; they are not therapists. We need to make sure that professional therapists are in there who can support those children at the worst times of their lives, when they are dealing with things going on for them.
I will also say, and this is not talked about quite a lot, that I want to see an opportunity for the arts, as part of social inclusion, to be brought back into schools. This was removed a number of years ago, but it is so important. I know it is something that is being worked on by Professor Paul Downes and people in DCU. Professor Downes is part of that working strategy.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-14