Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to be here with officials from my Department. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to members and for its consideration of the Department’s Supplementary Estimate for 2022. Following approval by the Government, the Department of Education is seeking a net Supplementary Estimate of €852 million for 2022. This is a significant supplementary requirement for my Department and represents a variation on the Department's overall net Revised Estimates Volume, REV, allocation for 2022 of approximately 9.5%.

A number of factors gave rise to this level of Supplementary Estimate requirement that were not provided for in the original allocation for Vote 26 in 2022. These include additional funding to provide for continuation of certain Covid-19 supports in our schools; services and accommodation needed for the additional Ukrainian students in the school system; backdating of public sector pay and pension increases introduced through the extension to the Building Momentum agreement; and cost-of-living measures that were agreed during the year and will be paid out in 2022. The Department has provided a detailed briefing on this Supplementary Estimate for committee members, but I will briefly outline the key elements for the information of the committee.

An additional €96 million in Covid-19 grants was paid to schools to cover the costs for personal protective equipment, PPE, hand sanitiser, and enhanced cleaning for term three of the 2021-22 school year and term one of the 2022-23 school year. Members will recall that the original REV included a €51 million allocation for such grants for term two of the 2021-22 year covering January to Easter 2022. Given the uncertainty surrounding Covid-19, it was previously flagged to the committee that an allocation in respect of the remainder of 2022 would be made at a later point, if required.

Additional grant funding of €90 million is also being provided to schools for the 2022-23 school year, as announced on budget day 2023. This once-off payment is to provide additional support to schools, given general inflation and increasing energy prices. It is due to be paid to recognised schools in the free education scheme before the end of this current school term.

In September 2022, the Government approved an extension to the terms of the Building Momentum agreement to the end of 2023. This included a 3% increase, backdated to February 2022, that was not provided for in the original 2022 allocation. This backdated increase requires €200 million of additional funding to cover public sector staff and pensioners across the education sector and is paid from the Department’s Vote 26. There were also additional pay requirements in the school sector of €153 million. These requirements are mainly due to the need to allocate funding for extra staffing resources in schools. This includes additional resources for the Covid learning and support scheme, CLASS, delivered over the 2021-22 school year that was designed to mitigate against learning loss and support pupil-student mental health and well-being in light of the impact of Covid; an enhanced 2022 summer education programme for pupils with complex special educational needs and those at greatest risk of educational disadvantage; additional staff being allocated to schools due to social distancing Covid-19 requirements; increased enrolments as a result of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine; additional school substitution costs arising due to the level of Covid-19 related absences; and a range of other payroll subhead pressures.

Some €69 million of additional school transport funding is required for a range of initiatives and additional services introduced during 2022. This includes cost-of-living measures to waive fees for the 2022-23 school year; the provision of additional services due to an increased number of pupils seeking places on school buses; and fuel contributions paid to bus contractors in response to the impact that rising energy costs have on the school transport scheme. Some €6 million in additional Covid-19 funding is required to cover the costs of enhanced cleaning on school buses along with other expenditure pressures across the existing school transport services.

A decision was taken by the Government earlier in the year to waive the fees for junior and senior cycle students sitting the 2022 State examinations.

This was in recognition of the impact of Covid-19 on this cohort of students since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. Due to the ongoing challenges in the recruitment of examiners, an increase was again applied to the 2022 rates paid for correcting State examinations. The waiver of fees and increased examiner rates amount to an additional €14 million of funding being required by the State Examinations Commission.

A significant additional capital allocation of €300 million is provided for in this Supplementary Estimate. This is required to meet significant budgetary pressures primarily due to a strong spend on delivery in 2022 across the school building programme, which includes managing the national development plan roll-out and associated increased construction costs of €145 million; accelerated delivery of accommodation for children with special education needs for around 900 pupils at a cost of €100 million; and the accelerated delivery of accommodation for provision of post-primary places for Ukrainian students, costing approximately €55 million. This funding was required in particular due to the demand-led nature of the school building programme to support the operation of the school system. More than 360 projects in construction in 2022. This involves in excess of 50 new or replacement school buildings and in excess of 310 extensions to existing schools, the majority of which will be completed by the end of 2023.

The Department had to increase its published basic building costs by 21% based on reviews of actual tender outcomes during quarter 1 2021 and quarter 2 2022. It was also required for accelerated delivery of accommodation for children with special education needs, SEN. Delivering SEN at pace has involved an investment of €100 million over and above normal project delivery to enable over 900 children with special education needs to access an appropriate school place. This is a legal and constitutional requirement. This accelerated delivery was achieved through 83 projects involving mainly modular accommodation. There are big pressures on the SEN front at post-primary level and in large urban centres at primary level, with assessments of needs backlogs and increased evidence of autism.

The funding was also required for accelerated delivery of accommodation for the provision of post-primary places for Ukrainian students, at a cost of €55 million. While we are managing the bulk of Ukrainian provision within existing capacity wherever possible, our greatest pressure in capacity is at post-primary level where we are still in a period of rising demographics and significant special needs capacity deficits. Around 40% of the overall additional mainstream requirements in 2022 are driven by Ukraine enrolments. This €55 million relates to 45 projects at post-primary level.

An estimated additional €73 million in appropriations-in-aid income in excess of the amount provided for in the original REV allocations is included in the Supplementary Estimate and will partly offset the expenditure pressures I have outlined. The bulk of this additional income is represented by increased pension contributions, with some additional receipts due to refunds by schools of unspent 2021-22 Covid-19 grants. I am happy to discuss these issues in more detail. I commend the Supplementary Estimate to the committee.