Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Each year a fresh assessment will be made of the needs of children coming into a school under various headings such school allocations, the PTR, special needs and so on. My Department does its best to anticipate what those school needs are but, as I said in my reply, in September the enrolment figures can put pressure on. However, there is a built-in protection as the allocations for the following September are based on enrolments for this September. When the Department is drawing up its Estimates it has a pretty good idea of the profile of pupils and students entering the system. Pressures can arise but we try to do our best to manage them within the budget and we have been able to do that in the past.

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