Educational Disadvantage
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-06
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Joanna Byrne (SF), Louth

Right through last year and continuing up to this week, I met principals of DEIS schools in Drogheda on various issues. Even back then, before the announcement of the DEIS plus scheme, it was very disheartening for schools to tell me they were very worried about being forgotten once more and as it turns out, they were right.
DEIS schools in Drogheda provide an incredibly supportive environment for local children to thrive in. They are at the heart of communities that have been forgotten by successive governments. After the Government's DEIS plus announcement, Drogheda schools and community leaders collectively expressed absolute outrage and devastation at the fact that not one school in the largest town in this country was included in the new DEIS plus funding scheme despite several other schools at the other end of the county being included- fair play to them - but there is a blatant imbalance here.
Local principals at these schools went as far as to say there was a de facto demotion for existing DEIS schools. How can people in our area have confidence in the Department of education when they are once again being snubbed by the Government and this Department on the provision of desperately needed DEIS placement in an area that is suffering severe deprivation? The exclusion directly contradicts the 2022 Pobal HP deprivation data and recommendations from the 2021 Geiran scoping report, which have been outlined already. In a town that is used to being treated unfairly by successive governments, and I do not say that lightly, this latest snub has gone beyond the pale. Behind this wrong decision by the Government, thousands of children are being left without. It needs urgent reconsideration for all those who are being left behind.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-06/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-06