Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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106. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures he proposes to implement to honour the commitments in the programme for a partnership Government regarding a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio in junior and senior infants, the annual increases in capitation rates and the reduction in primary school class sizes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40989/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Budget 2017 set out the resources available for schools in the 2017/18 school year. The budget provides for over 2,400 additional teaching posts for our primary and post-primary schools in the current school year.

Budget 2016 provided for an improvement in the staffing schedule in primary schools by 1 point, from 1 teacher for every 28 pupils to 1 teacher for every 27 pupils for the 2016/17 school year and it should be noted that the current staffing schedule of 27:1 for primary schools has restored it to the position it was at prior to the fiscal crisis. The staffing schedule for post primary will be 19:1 for the 2017/18 school year.

The Action Plan for Education outlines hundreds of actions to be implemented over the 3 year period 2016 to 2019 which include restoring capitation funding as resources permit.

The process is underway for restoring grant funding that is used by schools to fund the salaries of ancillary staff. The ancillary grant was increased by €6m in 2016 and €5m in 2017 in order to enable primary schools implement the arbitration salary increase for grant funded school secretaries and caretakers and to also implement the restoration of salary for cleaners arising from the unwinding of FEMPI legislation.

The Programme for Government has a commitment to reduce class sizes at primary level and it is my intention to make further improvements to class sizes over the life of the Government.

However, I recognise that there are needs across the system which have to be balanced in the decisions made in each Budget.