Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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33. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the extent to which she expects to be in a position to address the ongoing issue of class sizes-pupil-teacher ratios and special needs teachers and assistants in the most detrimentally affected schools throughout the country; if her Department has identified those areas throughout the greater Dublin area that have experienced the most dramatic demographic changes; if she has examined the extent to which class sizes have exceeded the national average in these areas; her plans to take remedial measures to address such issues in the course of the current year or in the future; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37916/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Schools with significantly increasing enrolments are catered for within the staffing arrangements by being allocated teachers on the basis of their current pupil numbers rather than on a previous year basis which is the case for the majority of schools.

The staffing appeals process has been extended to include a new criterion wich helps those schools that make a significant contribution to the provision of school places, which assists the response to demographic growth within their area, and as a result are under significant pressure on their class sizes at infants level.

I have already stated publicly that because of increasing demographics my Department requires additional resources to simply maintain existing levels of service. Between this year and last year this has involved an increase of around 2,300 teachers in our primary and post-primary schools. This is a very significant investment at a time of scarce resources. There is no funding available for further improvements and it is premature within our budgetary context to be looking for this to be done.