Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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127. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to cases where the minimum floor space guidelines for classrooms are being breached; if she will provide a list of these cases; her Department's intention to alleviate this overcrowding in view of the maintenance of the pupil-teacher ratio at the second worst level in the EU; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44682/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that my Department has produced a suite of technical guidance documents, which are available on my Department's website, www.education.ie, to assist design teams in best practice in the design and development of schools in green field site situations. These documents cover all aspects of the development of a building project for both internal and external works. The current practice is to use a guideline of 80m² as the standard size for a general primary school classroom. This space allows for the inclusion of two en-suite toilets and in room storage. In the case of existing schools and given the limitations of existing buildings, site conditions and funding availability, it is not always possible to achieve the level of accommodation that is provided with a new school design. For example, ensuring the availability of sufficient playground space can be much more difficult particularly in town and city locations. However, such limitations can often be addressed through the use of a school's general purpose room together with the arranging of access to local community facilities and amenities.

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. My main priority for any additional resources for the foreseeable future will be to cater for the continuing increase in demographics at all levels in the education system. We have a growing population of young people in this country and despite the difficult financial circumstances we face as a country, we prioritised education so that the number of teachers we have in the system has also grown in order to protect existing pupil teacher ratios. There were a thousand more teachers employed in schools around the country in the last school year, than there was the year before. There will be a further increase of circa 1,300 teachers in the current school year. This is a very significant investment at a time of scarce resources.