Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply which indicates the progress being made. Historically, too many children, particularly from working class communities, have left school too early, but this is beginning to turn around. I welcome any improvement in that regard.

On funding for fee-paying schools, neither the Minister of State nor I can be blamed for this situation which got out of control during the Celtic tiger era. The level of funding provided for private schools in this jurisdiction over 14 years amounted to almost €1 billion, which is a lot of money. As I said, if we are to ensure equality in education and give all children the prospect of accessing third level education, we will need to rectify this.

The Minister of State may have heard last week that one private fee paying school, one of the best in terms of performance, with almost 90% of its students going on to third level, reported a €400,000 surplus in its 2012 accounts to the Companies Registration Office. Not only did it have a surplus of €400,000 last year, this was an increase on the surplus of €300,000 recorded for the previous year. Many have commented on how tough things are and the need to continue paying all of this money to private schools. However, this does not stand up. We are paying money to schools that are operating on a surplus. For this reason, the abolition of this funding is justified.

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