Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The overall spend is very high, and rightly so, because this is about education, which is fundamental to every person in the country. Focusing on primary schools and national schools, the big problem is that there was a cut to the capitation grant. Basically, that cut has not been restored. Looking at the capitation grant for national schools compared to what is available for secondary schools, there is a big difference. At the end of the day, we are trying to make sure national schools have a proper, clean school that has heat and can actually work in a nice environment. We do not want the current situation in which boards of management are taking money from their reserves to try to fund the day-to-day operations of their school. It is important that this is looked at and that an increase is put into the capitation grant to try to meet the operational costs of the schools.

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