Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am responding on the behalf of the Minister for Education, who I know is conscious of the need to ensure that schools are supported, enabling them to maximise teaching and learning outcomes for all students. It is vitally important that the education system is one where all children and young people feel equally supported. All migrant children, including children of international protection applicants, refugees, migrant workers and unaccompanied minors can access preschool, primary and post-primary education in a manner similar to Irish nationals until they are 18.

My Department provides funding to all recognised schools in the free education scheme by way of per capitagrants. These grants are based on recognised enrolments in the September of the relevant school year. The Department provided more than €660 million in capitation grants to schools in 2022.

School staffing arrangements at primary and post-primary levels are primarily determined by the staffing schedule for the relevant school year and pupil enrolments on 30 September. The special education teaching, SET, allocation model provides all schools with a baseline teaching allocation based on enrolments to help pupils who have learning and literacy difficulties, including those arising from English additional language needs. In addition to the normal staffing allocation to schools I have outlined, which are based on the previous September's enrolment figures, additional English-language support teachers and mainstream class teachers have been made available to schools on an ongoing basis through the school year to support pupil enrolments arising from the war in Ukraine and the rising number of families seeking asylum. Additional SET hours were also provided in 2022-23 to deal with the increased enrolments of these pupils in our schools. A similar scheme will be in place for the 2023-24 school year. In the case of special needs assistants, the support is allocated based on the advice of the National Council for Special Education.

For the 2023-24 school year, the Minister has introduced a landmark new scheme that signifies a new chapter in Irish primary education to provide free school books for all primary and special school pupils. In March last year the Minister was glad to be able to announce a major expansion of the DEIS programme, benefiting 361 schools, which has taken the total expenditure on DEIS in 2023 to over €180 million. We have also recently announced a new pilot programme to start in September to provide significant counselling and mental health supports to children in primary schools. As part of the cost-of-living measures introduced in budget 2023, some €90 million issued at the end of 2022 in once-off additional capitation funding to support increased running costs for recognised schools in the free education scheme.

I will bring the Deputy's points and what he has said back to the Department. I want to hear more from the Deputy afterwards about the statement that somebody from the Department told a school to go to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. If that is the case, we need to know about it because that is certainly not the policy of the Department of Education.

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