Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and his officials for this presentation. The material provided to the committee is very useful as it gives breakdowns in expenditure and savings. This is a welcome engagement.

Looking at the menu of potential cuts to save €44 million, one can see they will hurt and impact on education services. Does the Minister have a breakdown of the impact of the additional resource teachers that will be employed? I note the figure of €44 million in cuts has not been updated, as the Minister indicated it might be, to take into account these costs.

What is that cost? It is a cost that should be found elsewhere but the Minister has indicated that it is his intention to do that.

The Minister also referred to certain savings relating to the capital assets test option in his projections of options on the table. I might ask for more detail on what is involved in that. Figures have been provided. How have they been arrived at and what type of measures would be required to hit those targets that have been identified?

In respect of last year's budget measures and their impact, a significant part of the Minister's budget savings last year were to be taken from the reserves of VECs and the institutes of technology sector. From my engagement with the sector I believe this is having a very significant impact. We are finding that many of our institutes of technology are struggling to make ends meet as a result of the continuing reduction in funding to them. Does the Minister have any plans to repeat that or to assist those that are finding it difficult?

Does the Minister have any more detail in respect of the impact of the Haddington Road agreement and what the reduced costs relating to his Department will be? He has indicated that the vast majority of his budget is fixed cost based on staff payments, therefore, the Haddington Road agreement is significant in respect of the Department costs that may decrease. What is the impact of that? Since education has such a high proportion of fixed costs and staff costs and, therefore, would take a much higher proportion of the benefit of the Haddington Road cost reductions, surely we should not have to look at any cuts in the upcoming budget?

In respect of the debt situation in our primary schools, we had a meeting two weeks ago where we heard representatives from primary school management associations. The Catholic Primary School Managers' Association indicated that according to its calculations, up to 60% of primary schools will be operating in the red this autumn. That is because of the removal of the minor works grant and other issues. Has the Minister any plans to address that because it puts the burden back on families to raise funds to make up that deficit which is not a sustainable situation?