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

Given we are still in the calendar year for this budget and the next budget is going to kick in later, I am not in a position to make that commitment. I can tell the Deputy the indicators would suggest that any adjustments in the education budget, downwards or otherwise, will probably be less next year than they were this year. However, we will have to wait and see because there are a whole lot of variables that play into that.

The great thing about the parental and community engagement in Irish education, relative to other countries, can be seen in regard to even a small grant. I was in two schools in Cork on Friday where a mainstream grant had been made available rather than a minor works grant or small schools grant. In one case, this allowed for a building extension replacing five prefabs, and the parents were so happy to see this happening that the money leveraged a total sum of which 25% came from the parents and 75% came from the taxpayer. That is because of the relationship in this country between parental and community groups and the local school. This money can, on occasion, work to get children out of prefabs, which were a scandal. We should never have had young people in prefabs for the length of time they were in them. At the height of the Celtic tiger, 20% of all primary school children were in prefabs, which are now surrounded by ghost estates.

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