The Minister for Education and Science, Mr Martin, has said he will today announce "the largest ever programme to deal with educational disadvantage in this country". He would use an additional £19 million allocated to his Department in the Budget, plus other money available to him, to fund this.
In a break from precedent, the Minister for Finance yesterday left the announcement of the details of this package to Mr Martin. In broad terms, he said the additional money provided yesterday would increase education spending in 1999 to £2,623 million, an increase of more than 9 per cent on the provision for 1998.
Mr McCreevy said the "additional initiatives" to be announced by his colleague would address "the problems of adult literacy, the need to encourage children to complete second level and the development of the psychological services". All Mr Martin would reveal yesterday was that he was getting £1.7 million to provide escorts and safety equipment for children with disabilities travelling on school buses.
He also said Mr McCreevy had agreed to include a specific tax measure "to assist student accommodation developments". This will involve a temporary expansion of tax relief on rented accommodation in urban renewal and other designated areas to encourage the building of student residences on or near third level campuses. Further details will be in the Finance Bill.
The Minister of State for Education, Mr Willie O'Dea, said that in the week after the publication of his Green Paper on Adult Education, he was "delighted with the £1.5 million increase in funding to combat adult illiteracy". This would allow for "the implementation of many aspects of the Green Paper without having to wait on the publication of the White Paper".
He said he had also secured an increase of £1.5 million for youth affairs, on top of the £400,000 supplementary budget for the Youth Services which he had announced last week.
Mr McCreevy also announced that teachers in second-level schools who, until now, might have been re-deployed because of falling student numbers, would henceforth be retained to provide increased remedial services.
The ASTI general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, welcomed this retention of second-level teachers as "a step in the right direction". Until now, student numbers falling below a certain level would lead to teachers being re-deployed. He said the ASTI would continue to press for a reduction in the appointment ratio of teachers - the ratio of teachers to the number of students enrolled.
Mr George O'Callaghan, general secretary of the Catholic management body, the Secretariat of Secondary Schools, also welcomed the "attempt to alleviate staffing difficulties in schools by retaining teachers". However he said the second-level pupil-teacher ratio was "still too high and needs to be addressed urgently".
The Teachers Union of Ireland general secretary, Mr Jim Dorney, welcomed the "targeting of resources to the area of greatest need, i.e. disadvantage".