Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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1246. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the impact the increase in pupil teacher ratio numbers of private or fee paying schools, both financially and in terms of increase in attendance, has had on the public system, in view of the fact that 255 places have been lost in the fee paying sector; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33057/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Government's focus in recent years has been on operating a budgetary programme that is designed to return the Government finances to a sustainable basis.

One aspect of the budgetary decisions was to increase the pupil teacher ratio for fee-charging schools. Fee-charging schools have the resources, through fees charged, to employ teachers privately, an option which is not available to schools in the free education scheme.

The number of pupils attending schools in the fee-charging sector can vary from year to year. It is not easy to determine how much of this annual change is due solely to the impact of the budget measures. While the number of schools in the fee-charging sector has reduced slightly, the number of pupils enrollled in the remaining 52 schools has increased slightly from 24,561 pupils in the 2012/13 school year to 24,695 pupils in the 2013/14 school year.