Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

This year the Government will spend €7.17 billion in investment in education. This is an increase of over €4.24 billion on the levels we inherited in 1997, leading to major improvements in services. The pupil-teacher ratio has fallen at primary level from 22:7 to 17:4 and at secondary level from 17:7 to 15:4. Some 9,000 more teachers are employed and approximately 6,000 special needs assistants from a base of virtually zero. Is this a waste of resources? At third level the number of students has risen from 95,000 to 139,000 and expenditure per student from €6,500 to €10,800. This has been accompanied by massive increases in capital investment in our schools and colleges from €120 million to almost €500 million.

Significant increases in resources have been made in welfare and carers for disabled persons. For carers, spending has risen from less than €600 million in 1997 to €2 billion. These are important improvements in public services on both the current and capital side.

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