€88m to keep up with rising class sizes

An €88m investment will see 1,700 more teachers and special needs assistants employed in schools next year as the Government tries to keep pace with record pupil increases.

While the investment has been welcomed by teachers and schools organisations, they say it will do nothing to reverse previous increases in class sizes or the other cuts of recent austerity budgets.

The increased staffing made the headline feature of Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan’s budget, which sees her department given a non-capital budget of €8.3bn next year, up €60m — or nearly 0.75% — on this year’s allocation.