Progress Report on actions by Joeys Alumni to rectify inequality of school funding

There are two anomalies that disadvantage St Joseph’s CBS, a non-fee-paying voluntary DEIS school, and thereby their students. Firstly, the combined annual funding shortfall of €250,000 for the primary and secondary and, secondly, the age / condition of facilities.

In 2013 an ESRI Report established that schools like St.Joseph’s are funded 67% from State sources compared to 93% for Vocational / Community / Comprehensive schools. 

This discrimination is compounded in DEIS schools, which have little or no capacity to raise funding from parental contributions or fundraising initiatives.

We have put forward the argument that all DEIS (80% of families have Medical Cards) schools should be treated equally.

We first made this point to Minister for Education & Skills, Joe McHugh, at the official launch of P-Tech in November 2018. 

In March 2019 we wrote to him in great detail, requesting that this matter be rectified.

Subsequent discussions pointed us towards the Department’s Review of DEIS schools, which later turned out to exclude the issue of inequality of funding for voluntary schools in both its report and terms of reference. Indeed, voluntary schools like Joeys are totally unrepresented on the Review Group. In March 2020 we emailed the Review Group that such inequality is in breach of Section 6 the Education Act 1998 (copied to Minister McHugh).

To advance this matter further, in April 2020, we made the same detailed representations to Darragh O’Brien TD, Sean Haughey TD and Thomas Byrne TD (Fianna Fail spokesman on Education).

We will keep everyone posted on developments.