Parents shoring up school finances

Parents of students at half of religious-owned secondary schools are paying over €150 a year to make up for public funding shortages, research shows.

Funding differences between different school types have been highlighted for many years by the voluntary secondary sector, which make up 375 of the 721 second-level schools.

An Oireachtas committee was told last year that they get €90 less per student from the Government than the 93 community and comprehensive (C&C) schools and €212 less than vocational schools.