Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The day-to-day management of teaching resources in schools is done at local school level. It is not something I intend to audit as suggested by the Deputy. It is established policy that guidance is a whole-school activity and under existing arrangements each school develops a school guidance plan as a means of supporting the needs of its students. I am confident schools will act in the best interest of students.

I acknowledge that the reduction in resources to second level schools is challenging for schools. However, the budget measure that requires schools to manage the provision of guidance from within their standard staffing allocation, the alternative to which was to make an adjustment to the standard staffing schedule, must be seen in the context of our very difficult budgetary constraints. As part of the budgetary measure, my Department helped shelter the impact for DEIS post-primary schools by improving their standard staffing allocations.

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