Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

This Government on entering office ordered a comprehensive review of expenditure, whereby Departments reviewed their expenditure programmes in depth. This was done to realign spending with Government priorities, while also seeking expenditure savings, necessitated because of decisions of the past. My Department had to find savings of €76 million in 2012, rising to €379 million in 2014, required to remain within the expenditure ceilings set for the next three years. In doing so I sought to protect front-line education services as far as possible. I also needed to fund new initiatives, such as literacy and numeracy programmes, junior certificate reform and the roll-out of high speed broadband to all second level schools. The measures in budget 2012 drew on the results of this review. In addition to necessary adjustments in programme expenditure, the allocation for my Department takes account of efficiency measures across several areas. These include the rationalisation of the VEC structure, the creation of the new qualifications and quality assurance authority and of a single authority for the award of student grants.

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