Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister, the Minister of State and officials for being here. It would be ideal if we could insulate the education budget from any adjustments this year. There has been much success in the past number of years in the maintenance of class sizes across the board. Special education has effectively been ring fenced and there have been developments regarding the pay and pensions issue within the education budget, which takes up a large chunk of it. Much has been protected. Overall expenditure on special education is €1.3 billion. I know this can be a difficult and delicate subject to raise but we have an imbalance where schools in slightly more affluent areas get a disproportionate amount of the resources and schools in my constituency with a poorer demographic do not seem to be getting the same cut of that €1.3 billion because they do not have access to private psychological assessments. Is there any sense that we need to reform that expenditure to ensure that those who really need that expenditure get it?

Deputy McConalogue touched on the capital assets test. I have not seen the figure but I think about €330 million, if not more, is spent on student grants every year. Again, there is a problem in that system in that it does not funnel the money to those who really need it because we do not have a test that adequately takes in the assets of somebody who has a magician of an accountant, who can maintain their child's maintenance grant despite the fact that they have large assets. There are two large elements there could be investigated.

The debate around fee-paying schools is sometimes more emotive than based on reality. There is no figure of €90 million that can be easily yanked from the fee-paying sector because these schools do not get capitation grants because if this was to happen overnight, a number of them would come into the system and it is as not as easy as saying that there is €90 million that could be easily spent somewhere else. It is not as simple as that. However, we must focus on the 92% of schools within the free system that are totally dependent on the State. If we were to ask them to feel the pinch, we should do so. Notwithstanding the fact that it is not as simple as taking €90 million away from the fee-paying sector and putting it somewhere else because it would not work out that way, there would be some savings that could be made by disproportionately increasing the pupil-teacher ratio as we have been doing in the past number of years.

I do not come to this trying to find easy answers. The suggestion that special education resources are not going to where they are most needed, that student grants are not being spent the way they should be or the issue of fee-paying schools are difficult subjects to raise but we are in the business of asking hard questions and finding solutions. In terms of class size, what we have achieved so far must be maintained. The money spent on special needs assistants and resource hours must be maintained. Everybody across the board must make the point that we value the teaching and the professionals involved in our education system who are dealing with huge pressures, undergoing huge change and reform, are being asked to do much more and are dealing with children, students and families who have suffered hugely in the past number of years. They are holding everything together.