Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Children who need extra help are getting more support than ever before and the majority of extra teachers hired have been targeted, rightly, to provide extra support for children with special needs, those in disadvantaged areas and those who need help with their English. Not only have these additional teachers made an immeasurable difference in the lives of all these children, they provide vital back-up in the classrooms. The policies we have implemented have helped, with more than 1,200 extra teachers in primary schools in the past few years.

At second level, there is now one teacher for every 13 students. That is a considerable reduction on the figure in 1997. Those are the facts.

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