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

Between the school year just completed and the school year commencing in September, my Department will have provided 4,800 additional teachers across the school system. At primary level, 830 additional teachers have been allocated to meet demographic needs and a further 840 resource teachers and 300 teachers to reduce the staffing schedule by one point, which occurred last September. At post-primary level, 800 additional teachers have been allocated to meet demographic needs - an additional 660 second level resource teachers, 420 teachers in respect of school leadership, 400 teachers in respect of guidance and 550 teachers in respect of junior cycle professional time. It is expected that this additional allocation will improve the overall ratio of teacher to students when the statistics section of my Department releases the 2016-17 statistical data later in the year. The improvements made in budget 2016 improved the ratio of teachers to students from 16:1 to 15.7:1 at primary level and 14.1:1 to 13.7:1 at post-primary level.

The confidence and supply agreement and the programme for Government has a commitment to reduce class sizes at primary level and it is my intention to make further improvements to class sizes over the life of the Government. However, I recognise there are needs across the system which have to be balanced in the decisions made in each budget.

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