Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of guidance counsellors working in our schools. [45568/12]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The day to day management of how teaching resources are used in schools is done at local school level. It is established policy that guidance is a whole school activity and under existing arrangements each school develops a school guidance plan as a means of supporting the needs of its students. I am confident schools will act in the best interest of students. I acknowledge that the reduction in resources to second level schools is challenging for schools. However, the budget measure that requires schools to manage the provision of guidance from within their standard staffing allocation, the alternative to which was to make an adjustment to the standard staffing schedule, must be seen in the context of our very difficult budgetary constraints. As part of the budgetary measure my Department helped shelter the impact for DEIS post-primary schools by improving their standard staffing allocations. My Department also provided some limited short-term support to schools through curricular concessions in order to help them manage within their approved teaching allocation.