Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

In the past, these resources were allocated on an ad hoc rather than a permanent basis. Now they are permanent.

On the question of schools which are deemed to be disadvantaged under this system, the allocation is one to 80 for the most disadvantaged schools. This would change immediately for those schools once the survey has been completed, which is anticipated to be by the end of this year.

I fully accept the Deputy's point about urban educational disadvantage and I am grateful for her support on this matter. The Department will target the 150 urban town school communities with provision for early childhood education and class size reductions to 20:1 in junior classes and 24:1 in senior classes to avoid the children experiencing a big jump between these levels, as has been the case in some of the schools. More teacher support will be provided for the rural schools and clustering will help with school community links and literacy and numeracy measures.

As regards the early childhood provision, we want to ensure that duplication is avoided in the case where a very good service is already provided. The co-ordination required will create a link between the schools and community childcare facilities to ensure an education input. As a result of the investment in capital infrastructure in the past number of years some excellent facilities are in place around the country, particularly in the disadvantaged areas but we wish to ensure a good educational input into these facilities.

When the programme was launched I circulated both the full report and the summary report but I will be glad to provide the Deputy with another copy if required.

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