The Minister, Deputy Naughton, sends her apologies. For my part, I was a teacher for 17 years. I fully concur with many of the comments the Deputy has made. She is right that the importance of this issue is such that it requires a rigorous and methodical approach and evaluation by everybody. I have always been of the same view as the Deputy that it is about following the student. She is right about that and I agree with her. I thank her for raising this very important issue. Educational disadvantage is a key priority for the Minister and the wider Government. The DEIS programme is a key policy initiative for addressing concentrated disadvantage at school level. Where I disagree with the Deputy is that I think it has worked quite well. The Deputy is right that it is not a panacea for everything but it has worked quite well. When schools did not attain DEIS status, they were completely discommoded. There was a disconnect. That was a mistake. Supplementing universal supports, the DEIS programme provides a fair and targeted way to address concentrated educational disadvantage that promotes equity and meets the needs of children and young people. The DEIS programme currently supports almost 1,200 primary and post-primary schools, reaching approximately 260,000 students with an annual investment of €180 million. This year's budget allocates an additional €16.5 million, which will rise to €48 million in next year's budget, to support the implementation of a new DEIS strategy and introduce the DEIS plus scheme, which will commence this year. The new DEIS strategy, which will include the DEIS plus scheme, will be published in the first quarter of this year. At its core, this strategy will focus on improving the opportunities and achievement levels of children at risk of educational disadvantage, developing more innovative approaches to tackling education disadvantage and working towards a more flexible system of supports to ensure that a school can receive the right support at the right time. The Minister is committed to narrowing the performance gap between DEIS and non-DEIS schools and introducing innovative solutions to address disadvantage. Recent research, including the OECD review of resourcing schools to address educational disadvantage in Ireland, has highlighted the role of the DEIS programme in providing an education system that consistently outperforms many other OECD countries but also exhibits relative socioeconomic fairness, making it one of the stronger performers globally. However, this research has also highlighted that important differences in outcomes persist for students who experience very high levels of deprivation. That is why it is important to note that the Government is committed to introducing a DEIS plus scheme to provide additional supports to schools with the highest levels of students at most risk of educational disadvantage. I hope this will take on board the Deputy's point about following the student. It will also be a model that tackles disadvantage. At its core, it must be able to be assessed in the right way. As a teacher of many years, I agree with the Deputy on that. She made reference to the intergenerational piece. The new DEIS programme will target a cohort of schools with high concentrations of children and young people experiencing that intergenerational disadvantage, where there is a significant gap in outcomes and there are barriers to those children and young people achieving their potential. I see this in my own Department, where we invest millions of euro every year. We really need to have a serious conversation about that intergenerational piece. A DEIS plus design advisory group was established by the Department to inform the development of the DEIS plus scheme. This group includes principals, home school community liaisons and school completion programme co-ordinators who work directly with children and young people experiencing high intergenerational disadvantage. In 2024 and 2025, the Department carried out consultation workshops. The work is focused on informing key policy development. I look forward to working with the Deputy on the matter. I will bring her remarks back to the Minister.

Sentiment score: 0.09

I thank the Deputy for raising many pertinent points, which I do not disagree with. She is right that it is not just about funding. During my own career, it was not just about funding. This is about that wraparound service and that engagement. It is not just about being able to measure but being able to have students reach their full potential. It is not just about literacy and numeracy. The Deputy mentioned the arts but it is also the socialisation piece and, for example, the hot school meals programme. She is right. I will make the point that the Government is committed, in a cross-departmental way, to tackling child poverty. We see education as the enabler to achieve that. The development of the DEIS plus scheme will be a further positive step in our commitment to lifting more children out of poverty and giving them the future they deserve. I will take back the points the Deputy made. I genuinely share some of the views she has. We get that because we are on the ground. We are in the classroom and the school community. We are engaging with home school liaisons. I am a former director of adult education and taught the applied leaving certificate. There is also the issue of school completion. It is not just about the funding piece. We cannot say that we will allocate X amount of money and then just throw that at it. That does not always work, as we both know. The new DEIS strategy to be published this year will set a future roadmap that will support children and young people at risk of educational disadvantage. It is to be hoped it will empower them to reach their full potential. The strategy will focus on improving opportunity and achievement levels for children and young people, but it will also ensure that in the school community we can develop more innovative approaches to tackling educational disadvantage and tackle that intergenerational piece we have to keep working at. The point is, which maybe goes back to what the Deputy is trying to say, it should be a flexible system of supports to ensure the school can receive the right support at the right time for the student, person, pupil or child, whether they are a teenager or primary school student. I look forward to working with the Deputy on this. The Government is committed to tackling educational disadvantage and reducing child poverty. I thank her for raising the matter.

Sentiment score: 0.13

I thank the Deputies. I am taking the matter for the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, who apologises that he cannot be here. As both of them know quite well, the Minister has responsibility for policy and overall funding in relation to public transport, but neither the Minister nor his officials are involved in the day-to-day operations of the public transport service. That rests with the NTA, which both Deputies articulated. I will not insult them by telling them that. I appreciate and acknowledge the remarks they both made in the context of the experience of commuters and the travelling public. It highlights the importance of the need for BusConnects to be completed. I assure both of them that the Government is committed to providing all citizens with reliable and realistic sustainable mobility options. Public transport plays a key role in delivery of this goal. As I said, it is unacceptable that members of the travelling public, as both Deputies articulated, have experienced no buses, ghost buses or late buses. The reply given to them outlines a variety of reasons for bus cancellations, which will be available on the record of the House. The issue of staff availability is an issue that is ongoing. It is not just about Dublin; it is in Cork as well. The most frequent reason for bus cancellations on routes is related to traffic congestion and traffic delays. The key point I will make to all is that it is not about lack of investment by the Government. The Government is committed to public transport, which has been seen in the budgetary allocation. I appreciate that this is discommoding for members of the travelling public. It is unacceptable that buses have to be cancelled. It has an impact on passengers. That is unacceptable. The frequent occurrence of this is in part because of the high volume of traffic. There are a variety of reasons, but it is important to recognise that the NTA has a responsibility in this matter. Phase 7 of BusConnects, the F spine, is a good example of the responsiveness of the NTA to the challenging environment in Dublin. The most extensive phase of BusConnects to date, phase 7, was launched on 19 October. While that involved the removal of some services, new services and changes have been introduced, including the 24-hour spines F1, F2, 80 and F3, which aim to enhance connectivity across the capital and support Dublin's growing night-time economy. New local and radial services, such as the 23, 24, 73, 82 and L89 services, now serve areas including Ballymun, Finglas, Charlestown, Walkinstown and Liffey Valley. Following feedback from passengers and local representatives, alignment changes were made to a number of these routes and the NTA is reviewing further amendments to the routes to tackle challenges to reliability. With regard to ghost buses, when a service is cancelled the operator is required to cancel the service on the system that monitors bus locations and feeds the real-time information system. While that generally does happen, there have been some occurrences where the relevant operator personnel did not input the cancellation in a timely manner. The NTA continues to monitor this issue and to stress to operators the need for timely inputs of cancellations where they occur. Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about the issue of apps. Tomorrow, in Question Time in the Dáil, there will be a number of questions on the apps. It is unacceptable for people to have to rely on different forms of information where there is an app available that should have, in real time, the pertinent, relevant information. I will bring the Deputies' points about the S6 route back to the Department. I am not familiar with the route because it is not in my locality but I will certainly look at the Instagram account and feed it back to the NTA. It is unacceptable for someone to wait in subzero temperatures for half an hour for a bus to Maynooth and for it not to show up. I take the points the Deputies raised on behalf of people who want to use public transport. We must give them certainty and a guarantee that public transport will work for them.

Sentiment score: 0.08

Deputy Murphy might forward that to me because it is important that we bring feedback to the NTA. I assure the Deputies that the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, and I, and the Department, fully recognise that transport connectivity is hugely important for people who live, work and study. Deputy Boyd Barrett mentioned the link to Heuston Station. It beggars belief that there is no link from Heuston Station to the colleges he referred to. From a Government point of view, public transport connectivity is key to revitalising our villages, towns and urban centres. By expanding the public transport network and increasing service levels, as outlined in policies like Connecting Ireland and BusConnects, we are aiming to achieve more balanced regional development and greater connectivity for all public transport users. BusConnects has already achieved significant success in transforming Dublin's public transport network, notwithstanding the challenges the Deputies have articulated. Recently, research carried out for the NTA by Ipsos B&A showed that four in five customers have expressed satisfaction with the services of BusConnects and 45% believe the bus service has improved. I know we have a journey to travel. The NTA and Department will continue to collaborate with operators and customers to enhance the punctuality and reliability of services throughout the network redesign. I thank the Deputies for raising these matters. I will be happy to take the points they have made. I have taken note of the issues they have raised because it is about the travelling public.

Sentiment score: 0.26

Please do. I encourage the Deputy to do so. If we do not take the experiences of the travelling public on board, then we cannot learn. There are mistakes and gaps. I would be the first to say that. I see it in my city of Cork. I am not living in an ivory tower. I use the bus in Cork. I recognise this when I meet people. Going back to the Deputies' fundamental point, it is crazy, in a world with the technology we have, that an app cannot have correct real-time information for members of the travelling public. That drives people daft. It increases the volume of emails to the Deputies and the levels of anger and frustration. I will bring this back to the Department.

Sentiment score: -0.05