Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I underline what Deputy Creighton has said. The cost of a pupil in a fee-paying school is €3,710 compared to €8,900 in a free-education school. On the basis that there are 25,600 students currently being educated in fee-charging schools, the transfer over to full reliance on the State would cost the citizens of Ireland a staggering €133 million per year.

Fairness in education implies two levels, the first of which is that all children get a secondary education. The second is that if parents wish to support, in addition to that fairness of education in the secondary school classroom, additional elements such as sports and extra activities, and if they are willing to pay for them from their after-taxed income, that should be allowed. It is a choice of theirs. They set aside after-tax earnings which they could spend on themselves. It is wrong to shoehorn parents away from making that valid preference. Rather than immediate consumption, they set aside consumption in order to educate more widely and develop their children, in sports or in other ways. It is not fair to put the focus on the private fee-paying schools. It is not equitable. Even the teacher-pupil ratios in those schools have been disimproving as a result of the shoehorning.

There are other areas of economic benefit that the private schools provide. They have non-State-funded teachers. They have secretarial and administrative staff who are paid. The care-taking personnel receive income, as do catering staff, cleaners, medical and sick-bay staff, maintenance and grounds-keepers, financial support staff, bursars, night staff in boarding schools and security staff. All of these involve extra income being generated, extra families being fed and extra staff being employed in the economy as a result of the choice by some parents to bolster the education that should be equally and fairly provided to the children of the State.

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