Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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94. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of guidance counsellor positions currently filled; the number which are vacant; and the cost of creating new guidance counsellor positions. [12076/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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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 number of guidance counsellor positions in secondary schools is not available centrally within my Department.

The current budget provides an improved staffing allocation to second level schools for the purpose of enhancing guidance provision. This improvement takes effect from next September. It brings the basis of allocation from 19:1 to 18.7:1 for the 2016/17 school year. This improvement of 0.3 in PTR allocation is a restoration of 50% of the teaching resources that were removed when the allocation of guidance posts was brought within quota.

Restoring the guidance counselling allocation to 100% will require an additional 300 teaching posts at an estimated cost of €19m per annum.

At the time of the guidance cuts, all 195 second-level schools in DEIS were given targeted support by a more favourable staffing schedule of 18.25:1. This was a 0.75 point improvement compared to the current PTR of 19:1 that applies in non-fee-paying second-level schools.

That was a very important protection for the cohort of our schools in DEIS most in need of support. DEIS schools will also further benefit from the 0.3 improvement to the staffing schedule which will give them an enhanced allocation on the basis of 17.95:1 in respect of the 2016/17 school year.

The delivery of the 50% restoration through a change in the staffing schedule will allow each school to determine how best to allocate the additional resources to meet the guidance needs of the school. The circular issued earlier this year by my Department outlining the allocation of teaching resources clearly stated that this additional resource is to complement existing resources in order to best meet the guidance needs of the school in line with the school's guidance plan.

In the next Budget I will consider the best approach to further meeting commitments in the Programme for Government.