BUDGET 2016: ‘Reverse previous cuts to education’

The need to continue reversals of previous years’ cuts has dominated reaction to the 2016 education budget in which Jan O’Sullivan’s department spent €44m more than this year.

Although its non-capital budget of €144m is more than was budgeted for this year, additional pressures will mean that it will have spent €101m more than its €8.02bn allocation by the end of 2015.

The main features on which the extra spending will go include 2,260 extra teachers, two-thirds to cater for growing pupil numbers, with 300 of them to help reduce primary class sizes.