Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 October 2014
21. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Education and Skills if she is fully committed to previous guarantees provided on reducing class sizes as a priority in view of the extent of the reports into smaller classes having a positive effect on education, on inclusiveness and maintaining stimulation most notably at a younger age; the work being completed to achieve the goal of class sizes set previously. [37875/14]
View answerI have already stated publicly that because of increasing demographics my Department requires additional resources to simply maintain existing levels of service. Between this year and last year this has involved an increase of around 2,300 teachers.
In my pre-budget discussions with the education partners I expressed the hope that continued improvement in the economy will take us to a position where we can make improvements. However, as I have earlier noted my focus in preparing for Budget 2015 has to be to seek the funding necessary to meet this demographic growth, and not on additional spending measures such as that proposed by the Deputy. If in future years there is funding available to reduce class sizes my preference is that it would be targeted at reducing class sizes at the infant years.
