Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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171. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to provide estimates of the cost of restoring ex-quota guidance counsellors to all schools. [23211/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government 'A Programme for a Partnership Government' has a commitment to enhance the guidance counsellor allocation in our secondary schools.

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.

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.

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

In the next Budget, I will consider the best approach to further meeting commitments in the Programme for Government. I have an open mind as to the best means of delivering on this commitment, and am discussing this matter with stakeholders, including political representatives, currently.