Education: Minister for Education Mary Hanafin has secured the largest ever increase in day-to-day education spending for schools.
Capitation funding, to pay for basics like heating and lighting in schools, will increase by a record 13 per cent. Overall, spending in education is up by €742 million or 10 per cent.
Over 800 additional teachers will be recruited as part of the effort to reduce class size. In all, 11,000 extra teachers have been recruited since 1997, mostly at primary level.
Other main features include:
Investment in special education will increase by 30 per cent to over €820 million; this will help fund 15,000 adults now working with special needs children. Of the 8,200 special needs assistants now in schools, nearly 1,500 have been hired since September 2005;
Spending on disadvantage will increase by 15 per cent to €730 million;
On discipline, €8 million is allocated to the new national behaviour support services, which is helping schools promote positive student behaviour at second level;
Funding for the National Educational Welfare Board will increase by 20 per cent, while provision for national educational psychological services will increase by 17 per cent in 2007;
At third-level and fourth-level, funding for universities and institutes of technology will rise by 11 per cent to over €1.4 billion. This involves direct funding increases of €147 million for core running costs, reform and development, the expansion of medical education and R&D;
200 extra language-support teachers will be recruited.
Last night Ms Hanafin pointed out how education spending - now at €8.4 billion - has increased by 65 per cent since 2002. Some €3 billion has also been provided for school-building projects, with 1,300 projects under way this year.
"We believe in education. We know that education is the key not only to the individual fulfilment of our people but to our future economic and social success as a nation. And we are determined to promote excellence through increased investment at all levels."
The Teachers Union of Ireland cautiously welcomed the new funding to tackle discipline problems at second-level, but said it would be seeking more details.
John White , ASTI general secretary, welcomed the increased spending, but said these additional resources were modest in the context of Ireland coming 29th out of 30 OECD countries in terms of spending on second-level education.
Labour's Jan O'Sullivan accused the Minister of making a "big deal" of the Estimates.Yet the reality remained that Government spending in this most important area remained well below European and OECD averages.
Olwyn Enright, Fine Gael spokeswoman on education, said the increases announced barely kept pace with inflation in the cost of building materials.