John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

A range of additional financial supports are available.

I reject Deputy Brian Hayes's suggestion that the Minister is not fully engaged with hand-to-mouth school finances. My contribution is made on the basis of my experience for more than a decade of being a member of the board of management of a school in Clondalkin, which is not a particularly affluent area of Dublin. The school, which has 300 pupils, has experienced significant improvements as the rate of capitation grant has increased. While we have made tough choices and have not engaged in fund-raising as it would not make a significant impact to do so, the board of management runs the school within the resources allocated to us. We engaged in a fund-raising project once, about ten years ago, when it was decided to introduce computers. The decision was taken before grants were available for this purpose and we have since replaced many of these computers using grants that have since become available.

I know many principals and members of boards of management of schools which are experiencing difficulties and I accept the need to address these problems. However, doubling the capitation fee alone would not achieve this purpose. The motion makes a factually incorrect assumption that every school is grossly underfunded when this is not the case.

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