Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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678. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to provide a breakdown of school funding in 2024 and 2025, per county, in tabular form. [30535/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As funding from my Department is not allocated or recorded on a county basis, I am therefore not in a position to readily provide these details over the period, as requested by the Deputy.

As the Deputy will be aware, my Department’s vote currently stands at over €11.9bn in the annual REV for 2025. This represents a significant investment in our education system and in our children and young people and is an increase of more than c.€1bn compared on the original REV 2024 allocation. In the 2024/2025 school year, over 552,000 students are enrolled in primary schools and more than 425,400 in post-primary schools with the Departments funding being allocated under the following broad expenditure categories: Pay and Pensions (c.76%), Capital Projects (c.12%), Financial Grants to Schools (c.7%), School Transport (c.3%), and other current expenditure (c.2%).

Budget 2025 provided for an increase of €712 million in core current funding and over €360 million in core capital funding to my Department’s Vote. In addition, €120 million has been allocated for Cost of Living supports and €140 million for supports related to Ukraine expenditure. A further €30 million has been provided to facilitate a 12% increase in school standard capitation rates from €200 to €224 per pupil at primary level, and from €345 to €386 per pupil at post-primary level. This builds on previous enhancements and brings the total increase in capitation rates to 22% over the last two successive Budgets.