Seán Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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Question 182: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the yearly cost of paying teachers' salaries in fee-paying post-primary schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32803/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The cost of salaries and allowances paid to teachers in fee-paying post-primary schools for the 2004-05 school year was €89,612,639. The State has traditionally paid the salaries of teachers in fee-paying schools for a number of reasons. For example, if fee-paying schools were to close and the pupils were to move to the non-fee paying sector, the cost to the State would be higher. Whether children attend fee-paying or non-fee-paying schools, teachers would have to be paid. It also ensures all teachers, irrespective of where they teach, are paid equally in accordance with their qualifications and experience.

Considerations of State support for minority religions have also been important, given that much of the fee-paying sector has traditionally been made up of Protestant schools and those with a minority religious ethos. The funding of teacher salaries in fee-paying schools by the State has been a long standing feature of our education system and one continued by successive Governments.