Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This year the Government will invest €10 billion in education, the highest ever spending on education in the history of the State. In fact, €1 billion more is being spent on education this year than when the current Government of Fine Gael, the Independent Alliance and Independent Members came to office. That is money well spent. It is taxpayers' money invested in our children and in education. It is invested in giving them the best opportunities in life and ensuring they can access the best jobs when they grow up and become adults. That involves a lot of investment in school buildings as well. I cannot comment on the individual case that Deputy Martin raised but we have seen an enormous amount of new school building all around the country. My own constituency, a very rapidly developing area, has had a number of new schools built, including secondary schools and primary schools. The quality of those buildings is really excellent. I also have seen extensions built all over the country.

In the case of large projects, 340 large projects have been delivered since 2011 and 175,000 additional school places have been provided, recognising the growth in our population and the current demographic bulge. We have 6,000 additional teachers working in our education system and 3,000 additional special needs assistants, SNAs. We now invest more in special education than we do in higher education. Some 150 new autism spectrum disorder, ASD, units are being provided per year, which is an enormous investment. As Deputy Micheál Martin mentioned, the pupil-teacher ratio has been reduced.

There is a commitment in the programme for Government to increase capitation funding in the next several years and there is a commitment in the Action Plan for Education to do the same.

Even the wealthiest countries, those that are doing well economically, as we are, cannot do everything they would like to do in any one year. When it comes to capital projects - new schools, refurbishments and extensions - it will always be the case that there will be a pipeline of projects. It is never possible to do every project and everything one would like to do in education, health or any similar area in a given year. One has to prioritise and last year in particular we prioritised new schools where they were needed, increased teacher numbers, reduced the pupil-teacher ratio, and introduced new examination subjects such as physical education and computer science. As part of the budget, which is five months away, we will consider an increase in capitation in line with the commitment made in the programme for Government.

I also ask the main Opposition party to tell us what its priorities are because I hear its education spokesperson demanding more spending on new school buildings one day, the next day demanding full pay restoration or full pay equality for young teachers and the following day demanding an increase in capitation. All of that does not add up and Deputy Micheál Martin knows as well as I do that one cannot deliver all of those things in one year. What is Fianna Fáil's priority? What would it put first? Would it be capitation, capital spending for new schools or pay equalisation for new teachers, because it cannot be all three? What is its priority?

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