Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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795.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to outline the current expenditure pre-committed to her Department for responding to demographic pressures and pay in each of the years 2025 to 2029, in tabular form. [32633/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department’s voted estimate for capital and current expenditure for 2024 stands at €10.9 Billion. This represents an increase of over €2.8 Billion or 35% since 2019 and includes €7.1 billion for pay related expenditure. This is the third largest budget across Government, and the largest ever investment in our schools. This indicates the strong commitment to investment in education by this Government.

Over recent years, additional resources have been made available to our schools, including through the delivery of thousands of extra teaching and Special Needs Assistant posts, increased capitation in schools and investment in school transport services, enhanced supports for school leadership and management, additional supports for special schools, reduced class sizes in primary schools, significant expansion of the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) scheme, enhanced capacity to meet the increased number of pupils enrolled in our schools and special educational needs pupils in special classes and special schools, measures to increase the supply of teachers available and free school books for primary school and junior cycle students. Significant additional resources and supports were also provided in response to the Ukraine, Cost of Living and Covid-19 crises.

The 2024 Summer Economic Statement published recently outlines the Government's medium term expenditure strategy for 2025 to 2030. This provides for a total government expenditure increase of €6.9 billion or 6.9 per cent to €105.4 billion in 2025. Of this, €5.5 billion or 6.4 per cent relates to current expenditure increases bringing this total allocation to €90.9 billion in 2025. The Government current expenditure ceiling is outlined to increase by a further 5 per cent per annum from 2026 to 2030. These details are set out in tabular form on page 21 of the Summer Economic Statement at www.gov.ie/en/publication/ee21b-summer-economic-statement-2024/.

The funding available to further support education in our schools will form part of Budget negotiations. In the lead up to the 2025 Budget and as part of the annual Estimates process, as Minister for Education, I will continue to deliver on the priorities outlined in the Programme for Government and to continue to support the students, staff and families in the education sector and seek to prioritise the education funding requirements.