Educational Disadvantage
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-28
============================================================

Rose Conway-Walsh (SF), Mayo

I will outline to the Minister how Roxboro National School more than meets the criteria for DEIS status. It is a two-teacher rural primary school serving one of the most diverse and disadvantaged school populations in the country. The school currently has 35 pupils; 17 are from the Irish Traveller community and 18 are either in the International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS, system, refugees, homeless or living in emergency accommodation. Three children have moderate learning difficulties and 31 to 35 require daily special education teaching supports. Due to the diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds of the families within the school community, parent contribution funding is non-existent. There is no functioning parents association and the school is really struggling to maintain a board of management. This all adds to the strain on the already stretched and struggling teaching staff there.
I acknowledge the Department's efforts thus far to assist the school. The school was told that it would be added to the HSCL scheme earlier this year. However, that will not even scratch the surface.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28