Máire Hoctor (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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Question 453: To ask the Minister for Education and Science her plans to hire more teachers for Tipperary primary schools. [40360/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, there are now no less than 4,000 extra teachers in our primary schools, compared with 2002. Furthermore, there are nearly 7,000 more primary teachers than there were in 1997. This represents the largest increase in teacher numbers since the expansion of free education.

In recent years, priority has rightly been given to providing extra support for children with special needs, those from disadvantaged areas and those that need help with their English.

Extra teachers are being provided this year and next specifically to reduce class sizes, through a reduction in the mainstream staffing schedule. This has meant that, whereas all primary schools were staffed on a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 29 children in the 05/06 school year, in the current school year there is a general rule of at least one teacher for every 28 children. Of course, schools with only one or two teachers have much lower staffing ratios than that — with two teachers for just 12 pupils in some cases and so on — but the general rule is that there is at least one classroom teacher for every 28 children in the school. Next year, we are committed to hiring even more extra teachers in order to reduce this to a general rule of at least one teacher for every 27 children.

The improvements we have made in school staffing in recent years are absolutely unparalleled. But we are determined to go even further, and so the 2007 Estimates include provision for another 800 primary teachers. About 500 of these will be classroom teachers, which includes our commitment to reduce class sizes. I assure the Deputy that we will continue to prioritise further improvements in school staffing going forward. We will also continue our focus on measures to improve the quality of education in our primary schools to ensure that increased resources lead to better outcomes for our children.