Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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519. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 190, 239, and 243 of 14 February 2012, the resource that was used to state 42% of schools did not have a full-time guidance counsellor at that time; and the percentage of schools that do not have a full-time guidance counsellor at present broken down by fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools. [24519/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Up until September 2012, an ex-quota allocation was provided for guidance in addition to the standard teacher allocation to post primary schools. This resource was allocated in accordance with pupil enrolment. 42% of second-level schools at the time were allocated at least 22 hours per week in respect of guidance (22 hours being the equivalent of one teaching post) while the remainder of the schools were allocated between 8 and 17 hours of guidance per week.

Since September 2012 at post primary level guidance provision is now being organised by school management from within the staffing schedule allocation. Guidance is a whole school activity and schools have autonomy on how best to prioritise their available resources to meet the requirements in relation to guidance and the provision of an appropriate range of subjects to students. This operates at local school level and therefore the information requested by the Deputy on the current position is not available centrally within my Department. The Department helped shelter the impact for DEIS post-primary schools by improving their standard staffing allocations.