Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Stagg is deluding himself.

As the Minister for Education and Science set out yesterday, major improvements have been made in education under the Government. Some 10,000 extra teachers have been put in place and primary class sizes have been reduced to their lowest level ever. Supports for children from disadvantaged areas and those with special needs have been dramatically improved. Under the largest school building programme in our history, thousands of existing schools have been modernised, while many new ones have been built. We are fully aware of the many needs still to be addressed, but we are proud that we have provided for the most sustained increase in funding and participation in the history of Irish education.

I will respond briefly to some of the points made during the course of this debate on class size, special education and school buildings. The average primary class size has been reduced to 24, and there are 80,000 fewer children in classes of 30 now than there were in 1997. The Government has already committed to putting another 800 primary teachers in place next September. While there is more to be done to reduce class sizes further, the progress made in recent years should be acknowledged.

As the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, explained yesterday, there are now 50,000 primary school children from disadvantaged areas in classes of 15 or 20 at junior level and 20 or 24 at senior level. The number of children benefiting from smaller classes was expanded with the introduction of the delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, action plan.

The Minister explained last night that increasing teacher numbers is only one factor that impacts on children's achievement. For this reason, smaller classes are just one of the many different types of extra support being provided under DEIS. Other supports include special literacy and numeracy programmes with intensive extra tuition to help pupils with difficulties at an early stage; after-school and holiday time supports, including homework clubs and summer camps; extra funding for school books schemes; and school meals.

The Opposition motion also refers to class sizes at second level. There is now one teacher for every 13 students at second level, down from 1:16 in 1997. Schools are accorded a considerable local discretion in the way they organise matters of subject choice, teacher allocation and class size. This naturally leads to variations in the size of different classes, with some classes being very small where not a lot of students opt for that particular subject or level.

The most recent edition of the OECD report, Education at a Glance, shows that average class size at junior cycle in Ireland, at 19.8, is considerably lower than the OECD average of 23.8. Therefore, while it is up to school principals to decide how to organise classes, it is clear that in the last year for which comparative data are available our second level class sizes compared well with those in other OECD states.

There is no doubt that over decades the record of the State on providing for children with special needs was very poor and that we are still playing catch-up. However, significant advances have been made, improving the lives of many children with special needs and their families. There are now 15,000 adults in our mainstream primary schools working solely with children with special needs, compared with just a fraction of this number a few years ago. The number of special education staff at second level is rising all the time.

Over €820 million is being provided for special education in 2007——

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