Jess Casey: Education budgets never fully recovered from austerity years

With one of the largest budgets each year, education is simply keeping the show on the road 

One point of pride in recent years has been the overall reduction in the primary school pupil: teacher ratio over the last successive budgets. Now averaging at 24:1, the low level still marks Ireland’s classes as the highest in the EU, comparing to an average of 20 students to a class. Picture: PA

During austerity, education saw its budget take a battering. 

Some of the cuts that made the chopping block included teachers’ pay packets, the axing of 200 full-time posts from further education, changes to student grants, and an attempt to make cuts to disadvantaged schools, which was later reversed following outrage.