Educational Disadvantage
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-06
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Ged Nash (LAB), Louth

I would like to have more time available to discuss this, because I am confounded by that response. Effectively, what the Minister of State is saying is that we have disadvantage but that it is not at the level of concentration required for inclusion in DEIS plus. That is quite extraordinary in light of the data we have available.
I will give the Minister of State an example. At least three of the schools serve particular areas. I am going to read out the levels of disadvantage in the context of the HP deprivation index in 2022. One area on the north side had a HP deprivation index of minus 33. There was 27% unemployment among males there and 47% of people in the area were lone parents. On the south side, one area stood at minus 32 on the deprivation index. It had an unemployment rate of 27% and 25% of those in the area were lone parents. All the schools in that area are accommodating children who are in international protection accommodation services, IPAS, centres, many of them coming from the largest IPAS centre in the country, namely the Mosney centre. It is meeting all the thresholds laid down by the new DEIS identification model and the HP model. This is extraordinary. It needs to be reviewed in a meaningful way.

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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