Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First of all, the key world in relation to this particular school is “temporary”. The extra staff member that was given was only ever on the basis that it was a temporary measure. It was never meant to be permanent. It was very strictly and categorically told to the school that it would be in a position to retain this staff member only if it actually had the projected number of children, which it then transpired it did not. The Deputy made some points, not without merit, and some of them particularly around the pandemic and taking Ukrainian children, but the difficulty is that there are 4,000 schools also looking for teaching staff at various different particular times during the year. There has to be some sort of system that is fair and equitable for all of these schools.

The Department is satisfied with the fact that there are 246 pupils and 18 mainstream teachers at a pupil-teacher ratio of 18:1. This is satisfactory at present. As the Deputy mentioned earlier, in September should there be a change in circumstances and an increase in enrolment, then the situation can be reviewed again. That applies across the board for all teachers and, indeed, for special needs assistants, SNAs, under my particular remit, who can apply for exceptional reviews and schools can apply for exceptional reviews. We are, at present, in a very unpredictable situation vis-à-visthe education sector in its entirety when we are talking about the influx of Ukrainian children coming into the education sector. The schools and the staff have already been under significant stress in relation to Covid. I want to thank those schools that have come forward to help with Ukrainians. However, this is something that can be reviewed at a later stage. It is important to stress that at the moment it has a current staffing allocation that is satisfactory to the Department.

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