Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the 2016 Revised Estimates for the Department of Education and Skills. Expenditure on education is vital if we are to continue to thrive as a nation. Education gives everyone an opportunity to further their career prospects. For 2016 the education budget is over €8.7 billion. Of this, approximately 93% or almost €8.2 billion will be spent on current expenditure while approximately €600 million will be spent on capital expenditure. A further €362 million is being allocated to the national training fund. To put these figures in context a total of 17% of all Government current expenditure will be spent on education with almost 15% of all Government capital expenditure spent on school capital projects.

Let us consider the figures in more detail. The breakdown of €8.67 billion in current expenditure is as follows. Second and early years education accounts for almost €6.3 billion. Skills development accounts for almost €340 million. Higher education will account for over €1.5 billion. Capital services will account for almost €600 million. Almost 80% of the total current expenditure will be on pay and pensions. It is interesting to note that, of this figure, some €5.3 billion is allocated to pay almost 101,000 whole-time education posts and a further €1.16 billion is allocated to cover the ongoing pensions and retirement lump sum payments to over 46,000 pensioners.

The Estimates provide that for 2016 there will be 66,025 teachers in schools throughout the country, an increase of 2,250 teachers over the levels of last year. I very much welcome this.

I very much welcome the fact that almost €1.5 billion is allocated to special educational needs. This represents an increase of 10% in the past two years. Included in these figures is an allocation of 11,800 learning support and resource teachers in primary and post-primary schools. There will be an increase of over 600 posts in the current year. It is worth noting that the total number of resource teaching posts has increased by 41% since 2011.

I was delighted that the Minister, Deputy Bruton, announced an additional 860 special needs assistant posts for this coming September. This will bring the total number of SNAs to 12,900, an increase of over 22% since 2011.

The schools capital programme is receiving an allocation of €542 million. While I welcome the amount allocated I am somewhat disappointed that this budget has already been allocated to projects. I have received a large amount of correspondence from concerned constituents on this matter and I call on the Minister to reconsider the capital programme with a view to increasing the budget. For example, Scoil Naomh Feichín outside Drogheda, County Louth has recently received correspondence stating that while its project has been approved, the funding has not been sanctioned due to the fact the budget for this year has been reached. Again, I call on the Minister to reconsider the capital programme for schools.

Many positive developments are taking place in my constituency of Louth, where we are starting to see the benefits of the continuing economic improvements. In Dundalk, the Marist College has recently opened a brand new school, a singular credit to those involved. Dundalk has recently seen approval for a new extension to Scoil Realt na Mara and Dún Dealgan National School has received the go-ahead for a much-needed extension.

I note that the third level sector allocation is a little over €1.4 billion with over €900 million funding for universities, institutes of technology and other higher education institutions. A further €407 million has been reserved for student support and almost €40 million for research activities. While I very much welcome the allocation for third level education, I fear it is not enough. In the past week I met with the president of Dundalk Institute of Technology, Anne Campbell. She outlined to me in great detail the challenges faced by DkIT as a result of reduced funding. I urge the Minister to re-examine the funding with a view to providing increased funding to third level institutes, in particular, DkIT, which is the only institute of technology in the north east of the country and provides an important service to the students of the area, especially those students based in County Louth.

I welcome the fact that funding has been increased for the education sector but I urge the Minister to consider increasing all allocations to the third level sector, in particular DkIT in Dundalk. Furthermore, I urge him to make additional funding available for the schools capital programme so that schools like Scoil Naomh Feichín can proceed with projects.

I wish the Minister, Deputy Bruton, the best of luck in future as Minister for Education and Skills.

See this speech in context