Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The ask from this budget from the INTO is very important - 1,000 additional teachers - to help us reduce class sizes for every child to give him or her more attention, to support inclusive education, to meet growing pupil needs, to ease the workload pressure and potential burnout for teachers facing those very high numbers within the classroom and to bring stability to school and strengthen leadership. Coming from a rural constituency, I acknowledge a lot of those rural schools that are struggling at the moment to maintain their two, three or four teachers because they are always faced with the threat of losing one because they are just barely over the number at the moment. Those additional teachers will help with that. We need to fill the posts that are there, of course. However, hiring those additional 1,000 teachers will certainly help with our key commitment. It has been done step by step but this year's budget will be very important step towards that key figure of 19:1.

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