Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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409. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated first year and full year saving of removing the monetary subsidy given to private schools. [27803/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Gross expenditure on the order of €121 million was incurred by my Department on salaries for teachers and special needs assistants (including employer’s PRSI) in fee-charging schools in the 2020/2021 school year. Capital supports (building-related and ICT grants) are also available to such schools totalling over €1.6 million in 2021. In addition, specific Covid-19 grant funding of €3 million was paid to these schools in the financial year 2021 for hand sanitiser, enhanced cleaning and supervision.   

If the parents of children in the fee-charging sector chose to send their children to the non-fee-charging sector, the State would have to fund those school places. In this respect, the figures quoted relate to the gross cost of fee-charging schools and not the net financial position. Since it is not possible to predict these patterns of behavior, it is not possible to calculate any full-year saving if the monetary subsidies from my Department to fee-charging schools were removed.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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410. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will outline the use of assistive technology in the Drumcondra primary tests scoring system; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27860/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Drumcondra tests scoring system used by schools allows them to input pupils’ test results and to generate reports and record scores from the Drumcondra tests. This software is used only by teachers as a way of managing test data by the school and not by pupils during testing. 

The Drumcondra Online Test System for pupil testing includes a zoom feature that students can use to magnify the size of any images on screen during testing. Colour-blindness was also considered during the development of the recent (2018) test materials so that students with colour-blindness are not disadvantaged by the colour/shading of images.