Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

That is difficult as well. One has to make an assessment of what is happening. That said, the Department is working on this. Fundamentally, those who have committed the crimes and those responsible for them should pay. That is the religious orders, in particular. A significant degree of work is under way in the Department to identify various scenarios. In previous times, the State went first and got roundly criticised by everyone in this House. I am particularly thinking of the institutional abuse case, where the State got criticised even though it moved quickly to avoid people having to go through the courts and provided a redress scheme for survivors of institutions. In this instance, many of the orders have resources that they can allocate. In any event, that work is under way. As well as setting up the inquiry, the Minister and her Department are working on that issue.

Deputy O'Meara raised the teacher refund scheme. I will talk to the Minister in that regard. I think that is an omission. Counsellors in schools are teachers, predominantly.

Deputy Connolly spoke of teacher vacancies. I want to make the point to everyone in the House that the annual education indicators report for the 2023-2024 school year was presented to Cabinet today. It is published jointly by the Department of Education and Youth and the Department of Children, Disability and Equality. We have more teachers than we ever had. Total teaching posts rose to 76,223 in the last year; that is up from 69,221 in 2020. The pupil-teacher ratio is declining. Class sizes have decreased from 23.3 to 22.5 since 2020. Dividing the number of teachers in schools by pupils gives extraordinary outcomes. The pupil-teacher ratio is 12.8 in a primary school, down from 14.5. It is 12.2 in post primary. That is dividing the number of teachers crudely into the number of pupils. That has created challenges as we seek to expand special classes this year. Some 400 special classes have been confirmed. We need to assess it again. There are particular issues in particular locations with housing and so on but the overall story when you stand back and look at what has happened in recent years is more and more people have come into teaching. Listening to some of the commentary, one would imagine it was going in the opposite direction. There needs to be balance and perspective in the debate. I just thought I would make that observation. I will come back to the Deputy on recruitment of teachers for the 400 extra classes.

Deputy Ó Murchú raised class places for children with special educational needs. Some significant work has been undertaken by the Minister with responsibility for special education, Deputy Moynihan, and the Minister for education, Deputy McEntee. Both are working hard on special education and securing places for children in advance of the school year. They have made good progress. Some schools will need structural work. Some may not be ready in September but will certainly be ready at some stage in the next school year. We are doing everything we can to ensure that in future years planning starts earlier. Trials are being conducted on a common application system to streamline that. When we provide additional places, it is important they are for children on the waiting list, primarily. That is why they are being secured and the NCSE is working hard on that.

In response to Deputy Coppinger, what is significant in terms of third level education is that we are now third in the OECD for tertiary attainment. In Ireland 54% of adults hold a third level qualification which is well above the European Union average of 35%. The national access plan, SUSI grants and the fund for students with disabilities have significantly widened access for disadvantaged, disabled and under-represented students. That is a story of progress that does not get highlighted at all. The share of higher education entrants with a disability rose from 12.4% in 2022 to 14.7% in 2024. Over 14,800 learners with disabilities are now in further education. A Fianna Fáil Minister introduced DEIS more than two decades ago. Norma Foley in the last Government dramatically expanded it.

The good news is that progression from DEIS schools to further and higher education has risen to 64%, closing the gap with the non-DEIS schools, which stands at 80%. These are real achievements at third level and we should not lose sight of them in all the other commentary. I dealt with that issue earlier. The budget and the Estimates will deal with the provision for third level education for the next academic year.

I think I answered Deputy O'Rourke's question on the commission of investigation, in that the Minister and the Department officials are working on that issue. They have a bit more work to do. They will come back to the House when that is completed.

I am not quite clear what Deputy O'Sullivan was referring to in respect of the Department of children and equality not reconciling pay and numbers between the HSE and the Department of children. I will check that with the Minister for children and come back to the Deputy.

On Deputy's Heneghan's issue, is it that the school has privately resourced a teacher?

See this speech in context