Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
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John Connolly (FF), Galway West

The last point the Minister made is relevant today in particular. This morning, we heard and read of a new ESRI study produced in partnership with Tulsa that highlights that school attendance rates are dropping. In recent years, we have seen a decline and it is pertinent that there is concern about that. In schools with higher levels of disadvantage, attendance rates are not as good as in schools that do not have that same level of disadvantage. However, it is important to point out that there is a level of deprivation in every school. Certainly, in DEIS and DEIS plus schools, there is a greater concentration of that deprivation but all schools have pupils whom staff will recognise as being deprived. As the Minister pointed out, one of the things that increases the chance of that child attending school is a good relationship between the pupil and the teacher. That is easier to build when there are fewer pupils with whom the teacher has to work. That is a very pertinent point the Minister made.
The Minister is right in saying that in recent years the Government has significantly increased the number of teachers. They have not all been applied in the mainstream setting, and I am talking specifically about the mainstream setting.
We have also seen an increase in the diversity of pupil profiling and an increase in pupil needs. It is important that we try to achieve that 19:1 ratio and that we start to work on that as soon as possible.

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Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17