There needs to be another, third band to help students in DEIS schools, one principal has said.
Principal of Cnoc Mhuire Senior School in Dublin Orla Hanahoe was speaking as schools in the most deprived parts of the country cannot meet the needs of their students, according to principals.
They are calling for an overhaul of the DEIS system of supports for disadvantaged communities.
Currently, a school is assigned to DEIS Band 1 or DEIS Band 2 based on its level of disadvantage.
Ms Hanahoe told The Pat Kenny Show these bands should be widened.
"We feel there's an additional level of DEIS - for example, in areas like mine and Darndale and Ballymun, it's intergenerational disadvantage," she said.
"That separates us from other schools; there's children and parents affected by social issues, drug and alcohol, high crime rates, feuds, unemployment.
"Every school needs this, but there's certain schools that need more - the band [of] DEIS 1 it's too wide.
"My school would be very different to another school who would also be DEIS 1 in another part of Dublin not too far [from here].
"It's a fantastic community, and there's so many hard-working, decent people doing their best - but they really, really rely on the schools for supports.
"We feel that we can't give them enough, that we can't help them enough."
'A balanced mix'
Ms Hanahoe said depreavation is in every area, not just theirs.
"There's disadvantaged children in every school, in every community," she said.
"But what I would say about schools like ours is that there's more.
"Ideally there should be a broad mixture of children - in an ideal world there wouldn't be high concentrated levels of schools or deprivation.
"We all know that children learn from their peers and are influenced by their peers.
"If you have a good mix, a balanced mix like that, it has a positive outcome for everyone".
'Multidisciplinary supports'
Ms Hanahoe said recruiting staff is just one of the issues they face.
"I've been principal 15 years now, and I remember the first year I started, I think I might have had 600 or 700 applications for one or two jobs," she said.
"Over the years that's dwindled... during COVID I might have for three jobs about 80/90 applications.
"This year I had seven jobs and I only had about 10 applications, so that is another challenge".
Ms Hanahoe said several schools in the area have come together to discuss what they need.
"The most burning thing that everybody wanted, above the pupil-teacher ratio, was access to supports," she said.
"To have a multidisciplinary team in our school, similar to what the North Inner-City Project have.
"I know it's a nationwide problem [that] the children aren't getting services; but we'd have children in our schools who aren't getting any occupational therapy, speech and language therapy or psychology services or assessments.
"We'd love if we could have a team shared amongst the schools," she added.
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