Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 106 and 113 together.

I wish to re-emphasise that there are no changes proposed in respect of the Protestant block grant. Protestant fee-charging schools receive and will continue to receive the Protestant block grant, which in the current school year amounts to €6.25 million. This payment covers capitation, tuition and boarding grants.

The grant is distributed by the Secondary Education Committee among needier Protestant children. Applications are made by parents to the Central Protestant Churches Authority which, on the basis of a means test, distributes the funds to individual schools on the basis of pupil needs. The retention of this grant demonstrates the importance that I, and the Government, continue to attach to ensuring that students of the Protestant faith can attend schools which reflect their denominational ethos.

Furthermore, in retaining this grant, the Government is being faithful to the separate arrangements that were agreed with Protestant schools when the free scheme was introduced by Donogh O'Malley and, at the time, it was the payment of a block grant in particular for Protestant fee-charging schools that distinguished them from Catholic schools that also chose to continue to charge fees. In addition to the block grant, Protestant fee-charging schools were paid a range of support services grants that Catholic fee-charging schools did not receive. The purpose of these grants was not to offset fees for disadvantaged Protestant students.

It is estimated that savings of €2.8 million will accrue as a result of the withdrawal of these grants from Protestant fee-charging schools in 2009. I have had to take decisions in regard to a range of grants that have impacted on the funding of schools generally. With the Protestant block grant protected, I can see no justification for treating Protestant fee-charging schools in a special way, particularly given that Catholic fee-charging schools have not been in receipt of the grants in question at all.

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