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

The Deputy will see from the reply that I have provided an increase with €15 million going into the budget, bringing it to €112 million. When one adds to that the home school community liaison service and the school completion programme, which are run through the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, and the increased allocation to the Department of Social Protection, we are increasing funding on all fronts.

The Deputy will be aware of what I did initially. There are 79 new schools coming in for the first time ever and 30 schools are being upgraded from urban band two to urban band one. That will give them access to a greater range of resources. An urban band one school, as the Deputy will be aware, has a lower pupil-teacher ratio. Therefore, those schools - there are 45 of them in total - will get a lower pupil-teacher ratio. They are among the schools that have been identified as the most disadvantaged which were not properly evaluated historically. The old way, which depended on principals gathering information, was arbitrary and some schools completely missed out. Now, without any application, we are identifying the schools of greatest need and we are putting resources into them. This is a genuine effort to ensure that the resource is following the need. We will work with all the partners to refine this process as we go forward but there were glaring examples of 79 schools that deserved support and which we can start to provide from September.

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