Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

This motion is about the value of education. At its most fundamental level, education is about unlocking the potential in every child, but it is also about harnessing the creative potential of society as a whole. Universal education underpins our democracy and is the process through which we learn about the world and how we can contribute to it. Universal education delivers what the market never could, but what the market so relies on, namely, an educated workforce.

We pay for education out of the common purse because we believe no child should be denied the opportunity — the awakening — provided by education for want of the money to pay for it. We pay for it together because we believe that what is good for one child should not be denied to another child, and what is good for all our children is good for our society. However, the amount we are willing to take out of the common purse for education tells us a lot about its place in our national priorities. It is hard to put a value on education but we do put a price on it.

Ireland lags behind most other OECD countries in its education expenditure in almost every sector. According to the most recent figures, Ireland spends less than 4.7% of its GDP on education compared with an OECD average of 6.2%. Even adjusted for gross national income, we still only stumble into the average bracket for the funding of education. This is only telling us what almost every parent in the country knows already, namely, that our schools, particularly our primary schools, cannot make ends meet without generous voluntary contributions, fundraising and overdraft facilities. A recent survey by the Irish Primary Principals Network and the National Parents Council found that over 40% of parents were paying over €100 in voluntary contributions for the day-to-day running of their local school. The IPPN also found that almost one third of parents' associations have to raise over €10,000 a year just to keep the doors open.

The Government will spend €9 billion on education this year. This is invariably the Minister's opening gambit whenever the topic of underfunding comes up. She never loses an opportunity to reel off the money being spent by her Department, presumably in the hope that it will satisfy us. However, the figure of €9 billion means little to the principals and parents who find that their public funding only covers half of the real cost of running a primary school. Another survey by the IPPN found that the average 100-pupil school received €17,300 for this academic year. Out of this, it is expected to pay for heating, electricity, water and other utility bills, cleaning, repairs, insurance, office supplies and classroom materials. However, these basic running costs amount to an average of €34,310, leaving such a school with a deficit of €17,000.

It would seem that the Department of Education and Science funds schools on the understanding that they will have to contend with chronic debt from day one. A brand new school is granted the princely sum of €6,348 to last it from before it opens its doors in September until the capitation grant arrives in January. This sum is expected to pay for the cost of recruiting staff, equipment for classrooms and essentials, such as computers and photocopiers, cleaning and utility bills, and insurance for at least four months. Unfortunately, it costs about €50,000 to set up a new seven-classroom school. As a result, new schools are forced to open on the verge of bankruptcy — bankruptcy that is built into the way we fund schools.

It is not only the meagreness of funding for the day-to-day running of schools but also the way funding is designed that causes headaches for school principals and parents. Once a school is up and running, it can only dread the annual increase in the number of its pupils. The capitation grant is allocated based on pupil enrolment in the previous year. This means that rapidly expanding schools in our newer suburbs have to subsidise their new classes from funds based on outdated figures. Surely it is not rocket science to anticipate that if there is a need for a new school in the first place, there will be a high demand for places. Most schools will have a reasonably accurate idea before September of how many pupils they will have for that academic year. After all, they have to find teachers for them, who, in turn, are paid for by the Department of Education and Science. Therefore, why is it so difficult for the capitation grant to be delivered to schools before pupils begin the school year? It seems that this system is geared towards the needs of an unwieldy and rigid bureaucracy rather than children who need classroom materials and clean, safe and warm schools from September, not from the following January when the money finally arrives.

Doubling the core capitation grant for the day-to-day running of schools is fundamentally about taking the crisis out of managing a primary school and at a cost of €82 million, or less than 1% of the total education budget. Inflation, rising energy costs, rising insurance premiums and now water charges mean that incremental increases in the capitation grant are wiped out almost as soon as they are introduced.

However, the problem goes far deeper than this. Take the budget of some sample schools, as provided by Educate Together. One inner city school with 217 children has projected running costs of €121,000 for this academic year. However, €38,150 of that will have to come from fundraising — a staggering €175 per child. Another school in a new suburb has 373 children and will cost €170,000 to run this year. Unfortunately, €63,000 of this, or €169 per pupil, will have to be sourced through fundraising and voluntary donations. These are not isolated cases. A recent survey by the IPPN found that 97% of school principals found the capitation grant insufficient to meet the day-to-day running costs of their schools and that 80% of schools relied on fundraising for basic necessities.

Somewhere in the Department of Education and Science is an awareness of what it really costs to run schools. After all, second level schools rarely need to fundraise for necessities. This is because, when a child enters secondary school, he or she is automatically worth almost twice the amount of capitation funding. The core capitation grant goes towards the day-to-day running of a school yet surely it costs the same to heat, light and run a building regardless of the age of the children in it.

All of this is hardly news to the Minister. Before the general election she promised to double the primary capitation grant, a move which would in one swoop solve the problems of the schools I have mentioned and many more besides.

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