Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Years ago, before the troika arrived on these shores, Cabinet Ministers spoke of the Department of Finance's "Asgard list" of unthinkable possibilities such as selling off the Book of Kells and the Asgard. Obviously I am joking and referring to the last century. It was a frighteners' list, and there is a modern version of it but I will not say its name. The principle that informs the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, the Government and I about this section is to protect front-line services as best we can and see what savings can be found that will not disrupt, seriously impair or hamper the delivery of the education services. I just signed off some statistics which will be published later today. The increase in the numbers is substantial.

In a sense, we are ring-fenced to the fact that every increase of population automatically releases funding for a primary schoolteacher and a post-primary schoolteacher. Other than that, we literally just have to look where we can get funding that is not being properly used or that we think can be used in a more effective way. This is why we looked at the balances both the IOTs and the ETBs had last year, and we were able to get a once-off payment in that regard.