I ask everyone to turn off their mobile phone devices or put them on silent. Before we begin, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the House as regards references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamatory action for anything they say at the meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Chair to ensure that privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to identifiable persons or entities, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative they comply with any such direction.

I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex to participate in public meetings. In this regard, I ask members partaking via Microsoft Teams that prior to making their contribution to the meeting that they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if member statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.

Today marks our engagement with officials from the Department of Education and Youth on the project overspend of the Department. I welcome Mr. Dalton Tattan, assistant secretary general; Ms Martina Mannion, assistant secretary for special education, NEPS and redress; Mr Hubert Loftus, assistant secretary general; Ms Cliodhna O'Neill, assistant secretary for school governance; Mr. Martin Clohessy, assistant secretary for major projects; and Mr. Tom Whelan, principal officer for finance. The committee welcomes the opportunity to engage with the witnesses, and I thank them for being here today.

I invite Mr. Tattan to make his opening statement.

A Chathaoirligh agus a Bhaill den Choiste, I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to speak today about the budgets allocated to the Department of Education and Youth.

It is important to acknowledge at the outset that the investment, along with the dedicated and skilled people working with our children and young people across the education and youth sectors, has enabled this country to continue to be recognised globally for the strength of our education system. Our students consistently perform at a high level internationally, and the Government is committed to ensuring that every child and young person, regardless of background or ability, is supported to learn and thrive.

The 2026 budget for the Department of Education and Youth is €14.1 billion. This gross allocation is made up of €12.4 billion in current expenditure and €1.7 billion in capital expenditure. The Department is allocated €10.7 billion on pay and pensions. This represents 86% of the current expenditure allocation and provides for over 114,000 public sector employees and over 50,000 retired employees. Other significant expenditure areas include capital infrastructure for school buildings, school transport, capitation grants to schools and grants to other organisations and agencies.

As part of Budget 2026, additional investment has been allocated to meet increased costs of existing services and to provide enhanced supports across the education system. Further extra funding of €646 million was subsequently approved by Government for the Department of Education and Youth to help ensure that high-quality education services are maintained. This funding is now on a permanent basis and will address the long-standing structural deficit, thereby reducing the reliance on supplementary estimates funding going forward. In addition to addressing the base funding, this funding approved post-budget provides for additional SNAs, due to no redeployment of existing SNAs in the 2026-27 school year, resources to accommodate additional children and young people with special educational needs in our schools, maintaining a heavily subsidised school transport system, enhanced supports for survivors of historical residential abuse and meeting obligations arising from ongoing negotiations of certain pay and conditions of staff working across the schools’ education sector.

The Department of Education and Youth has a proven track record of accurately forecasting the costs required to appropriately fund the schools’ education sector during the annual budgetary process. This forecasting is done within a highly demand-led sector, across a large workforce and almost 1 million pupils and students across 4,000 schools. Notwithstanding the accurate forecasting, from 2022 to 2025, for a variety of reasons, a total of €3.4 billion in supplementary funding has been provided to the Department of Education and Youth. The majority of the supplementary funding included a number of post-budget decisions taken at Government level over the past four years that had significant cost implications over the initial funding provided. Some of these initiatives were allocated from contingency reserve funding held centrally by Government for crisis supports related to cost-of-living, Covid-19 and Ukraine, along with retrospective funding for public sector pay deals agreed after the initial annual budget was provided.

Additionally, reprioritisation within overall Government capital spending was made available to provide extra school places, especially to accommodate the increasing number of children with special educational needs. The remaining funding required in the supplementary budget process reflected a structural deficit in the funding provided to implement existing Government policy, particularly in the demand-led areas of teacher payroll and school transport. When the post-budget decisions are taken into account, this Department’s initial forecasts have been shown, for the most part, as accurate.

However, ultimately the initial funding provided was less than the amount forecasted. Traditionally, the supplementary budget process had been used to examine the differences, analyse and verify them, and fund them retrospectively. However, it is a shared objective across Government to put investment in education on a more sustainable footing going forward and this is reflected in the additional permanent funding now being provided in 2026. It is also important to note that, in terms of value for money, the International Monetary Fund recently examined Ireland’s investment and outcomes in education and, in its published report, found Ireland to be "at or close to the frontier" when it came to public spending efficiency.

I hope this and the briefing provided gives the committee a good overview of the investment across the schools, education and youth sectors. We are happy to address any queries Members may have. Thank you.

I thank Mr. Tattan for that. I will now open it up to the floor, beginning with Deputy Timmins.

I thank the Chair and guests, who are very welcome.

I asked for the Department to come before us, and my main purpose was to understand the budgetary process and how it applies to the Department, especially in light of the 5% extra that came through. At the outset, I completely recognise, like in the last paragraph there, how good our education system is by international standards and how the investment in it gives very good outputs when compared with other Departments in this State.

I know from anecdotal and factual research that the quality of education is very high. I am not getting into that. That is a given. I am here today to find out why the budget amounts were so far off what ended up being required - in other words, the extra €650 million. Was the initial allocation set out in the budget last October and then maybe in more detailed form in December too low? Clearly, the Department is going to get overspends. That is normal but the figure is 5%. A lot of the figures are fairly predictable, although having said that, on pages 9 to 11, some of the increases are quite large, especially school transport. We can come to that separately. What I really want to get into is how the budget process works from the Department's point of view. Mr. Tattan says that when post-budget decisions are taken into account, the Department's initial forecasts have been shown to be accurate for the most part. He said that they are accurate for the most part but then the next line states that ultimately the initial funding provided was less than the amounts forecasted. I want to get to the nub of that. Part of our brief as a committee is to fully understand how the budget process works and I think there are gaps in it. Did the Department know at that stage that the amount given to it on budget day was too little and it should have been allocated €300 million or €400 million more to truly reflect what we expected the outcomes to be based on knowledge the Department had regarding teacher numbers, capital expenditure, etc.?

I thank the Deputy for the question and the acknowledgement in terms of the outcomes that the education system achieves in Ireland. In terms of the budgetary process, I will explain what we seek to do. There is a statistics unit in the Department along with our finance unit and other areas so each year, we look at forecasting and obviously we are trying to project. Budgets happen obviously typically around October. We are trying to plan for the following September but we can with a degree of accuracy predict levels of likely student numbers, influx and outflow. Things like Ukraine and so on have changed that a bit in recent years because overall the demographics have been on a downward trajectory. We produce forecasts in terms of what we believe we are going to need and how that translates into teachers, SNAs and so on and then we engage with our colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation and that intensifies in the run into budget time as well. We understood at the time of the budget that there was what we would term a structural deficit - that effectively we were seeking more than might have been available. We understand that the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation has a different job. It has to look at what the overall envelope available is across in terms of Government spending, what element of that then falls within public spending and then how that gets apportioned by Department. So there was a realisation at that time that the allocation that we had would meet much of our need and to be fair, some of that structural deficit was met in the original allocation for budget 2026 so it met some of the needs there to reflect things like pay agreements for which we had not been fully funded for in the past but not everything.

Would Mr. Tattan be able to quantify what the Department felt the shortfall was? Was it of the order of €300 million, €400 million or €500 million?

It was a little over €400 million. Expecting nothing else changing - no in-year decisions changing in terms of budgetary pieces through Government decisions - at the start of the year, that is the sort of expectation we had but we would also seek to try and manage that as best we could, to work within that as best we could and to continue to engage with the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation.

So it is a bit of a psychology thing then. We give you less and hope that you squeeze more out of that. Having said that, was it a surprise to the Department that it actually needed €650 million then given that it thought at the beginning of the year that it would need €400 million?

I would not say it was a surprise. What happened from the early part of this year was that other decisions were made. Some of those things were decisions made in terms of additional supports for survivors of institutional abuse, for example, and there was a call to be made in terms of school transport and how the fees would work in terms of school transport for this next school year. Some of the decisions regarding special education in terms of having the portal at an earlier point so we would identify what the needs were meant that we probably got an earlier look in terms of what the demand was likely to be for September this year so that emerged in the past few months so that would not have been known last October.

I appreciate Mr. Tattan's candidness. It is very much appreciated. I feel he has answered my question. School transport has gone up by 34%. Perhaps after this meeting, we could get a more detailed breakdown of pages 10 to 12. The increase is obviously quite significantly with school transport going up by 34%, salaries of non-teaching staff going up by 23%, SNAs going up by 18% and grants to a range bodies going up by 15%. They are all obviously massive numbers in terms of year on year so perhaps Mr. Tattan could direct the committee or send us detail of those extra breakdowns. In particular, school transport seems off the charts. Is there any reason for that?

I will let Mr. Clohessy come in on the school transport one. We can certainly provide a more detailed breakdown of information and follow that up afterwards.

We can certainly provide that for the Deputy and will provide a comprehensive response after this meeting. There are a couple of important pieces to note. Since 2019, numbers were just south of 118,000. This figure has risen to 181,000. There has been a very significant increase in the number of special education needs users of the system, which has driven an awful lot of the cost over the last while. From 2019, when we were at about €218 million, that has risen quite significantly and is up to €537 million by the end of 2025. That is largely driven by increased demand and increased utilisation of the service. What we can do and what probably would make more sense in terms of answering the Deputy's question is provide the breakdown year on year so he can see the trajectory but it has risen year on year and that reflects the number of users of the system.

From 2025 to 2026, the increase was 34%, which is really high. I imagine that is a one-off. I would not expect that to happen next year as well. There are obviously some good reasons for why that has happened. I do not know if it is a change in policy but I would be interested in that. Could I see a breakdown and maybe by geography?

To come back to Mr. Tattan's earlier point that there was a structural deficit in relation to school transport specifically, the additional money into the base that was provided for quite recently by Government should and will address that in the future.

I thank the witnesses to attending today. Each year, children struggle to get a special school place in their local schools due to a lack of school places, ASD classes and units. Is enough funding given to open ASD classes and units? We were told at one time that all schools would have ASD classes. This year, I have dealt with cases where people have to drive halfway around the country to get a class for their child.

We always have a concern. Every child is entitled to a school place and we want it to be an appropriate place for them. In the past few years, the Government has invested hugely. It does not take away from the challenges that individual families and individual children face but we have opened up over 2,000 special classes in the past six years so we have had a huge increase and I think some of that is about an increase in the incidence of autism in particular, which seems to be a much broader phenomenon - not just a national one but an international one. We are seeking to meet the need on that.

A number of years ago so, at one stage based on information that was available, we were working on the basis that about 1.8% of the population and children in schools would need a special education place. In 2025 and 2026, based on our forward planning and the work that we have done, we have supported about 3.2% of the overall population into those places. We are providing an additional 3,000 places for 2026-27 so we are now up at about 3.5% of places. As Mr. Tattan has just said, a number of years ago, we were providing about 300 special classes per year. Last year, we provided 407. As of today, we have 565 new special classes for September 2026. A total of 366 of those are at primary while 199 are at post-primary. Every county in Ireland has got new special classes for September 2026. We had the largest number of new special classes in Dublin, which is always a very challenging area in terms of spaces.

We also have the highest number of new post-primary special classes than we have ever had before. We are really conscious to ensure that we meet the needs of children. We want to meet them locally, which is important. When we talk about the costs of school transport, some of those costs have been children travelling to and from classes that are not in their area.

In addition to providing special class places, special schools, as the Deputy mentioned, are so important. In the past five years, we have opened 20 new special schools and significantly increased the capacity of a number of special schools. We are opening four new special schools for September 2026. Again, what we have tried to do is ensure that we have increased capacity in our existing special schools, which is one of the fastest ways to increase capacity, and to open new special schools in strategic areas where we have not had them before.

Going back to the earlier question around SNAs and numbers, it is Government policy that there are two SNAs in each special class in each special school for children with autism. Once you are in a demand-led service and you are opening that increased level of need, to meet the need on the ground, the resources will then follow; the teachers, SNAs, capitation, school transport and all of the training and supports. Due to the huge increase we have had, which has been life-changing for those children, we made sure resources were in the areas they need. We hope that parents have seen the difference on the ground in recent years by virtue of the new additional places.

How much of a budget is allocated towards crumbling school buildings? We are in contact with the Department about the poor condition of school buildings and schools have no funding to carry out essential maintenance and repairs. What additional funding is being allocated to this in 2026-27?

Again, I will hand over to Mr. Loftus, the head of our planning and building unit. I will say that the budget this year, in terms of the capital, is €1.7 billion. The vast bulk of that goes on school buildings. Mr. Loftus can give the Deputy more information.

The national development plan, NDP, was agreed by the Government last year. As part of that, and flowing from it, each Department developed sectoral investment plans, which were agreed by the Government. The Department and Minister then published the sectoral investment plan in January. That set out the range of how we are going to use the €7.55 billion that is in the 2026 to 2030 investment period. In broad terms, it is about €5 billion in the area of adding additional capacity and for projects all around that. It is €2.25 billion in the area of maintenance, strengthening the maintenance regime and moving into a more proactive maintenance regime. There is also a contingency fund of about €300 million over the period of the plan to manage any unexpected issues and things like that.

In terms of specific projects that we have prioritised, we published a list of those projects as part of our sectoral investment plan. The first tranche of 105 projects is there. They were for tender and delivery over the 2026-27 period. We are currently starting the prioritisation process and engagement with key stakeholders, including patrons and management bodies, in terms of the next tranche of projects. We will be starting that engagement later this week with patrons and management bodies. That will be the mechanism for looking at individual schools.

If any school has emergency issues that need to be dealt with, we have an emergency works scheme. For more proactive works, we also have our climate action summer works scheme. We approved around 300 projects in relation to that last year and we will have another tranche of projects to be approved later this year for summer 2027. There is a variety of schemes to support the school system. Our job ultimately is to make sure there are school places for all children and to support the operation of the school system.

We hear all the time about boards of management in different schools fundraising constantly to keep the lights on and pay the bills. What additional funding is being allocated to schools across the country for everyday costs and bills?

I am going to hand over to Ms O'Neill. She is the head of our school division. We have, particularly in recent budgets, been investing quite a bit on the capitation piece to support schools and all of those operational things in ensuring that they are sustainable. Ms O'Neill will have a bit more information.

I thank the Deputy for his question. A variety of grants are paid to schools on an annual basis. The most significant is the capitation grant. At primary level, there has been a considerable increase in that grant as a result of the increase in budget 2026. The Department has secured €39 million in additional funding. The ordinary capitation rate at primary level will increase by €50 per pupil, which is a significant increase - the most significant there has ever been. Over the past three budgets, we have seen an increase of 49% in the primary capitation rate. In our DEIS urban band 1 and DEIS plus schools, that will increase to €294, which is an increase of €70 this year. This is the first year that we have had an additional increase for DEIS schemes.

We will also see an increase in the mainstream capitation rate for young people aged 12 and over in our special schools; the same as their peers in mainstream post-primary schools. Again, this year is the first time this has happened. There were other grants provided for lots of different purposes. I am not sure if the Deputy has an interest in one grant in particular, but a wide range of grants are provided.

The witnesses are all welcome to this important engagement. In the context of budget 2026 and the funding envelope provided to the Department, why did the witnesses, as officials, and the then Minister, sign off on a budget envelope that they knew was a work of fiction?

I thank the Deputy for his question. I will go back to the point in terms of what we see our role as. We have to forecast and have to call it in terms of how we see what the needs will be for the education sector from one year to the next. That is what we did, but it then goes through an engagement with colleagues in the Department of public expenditure and reform. All Departments are going through the same process at the same time. I think there is an acceptance within the Department of public expenditure and reform, and members can see it from recent financial years, that we have relied to some extent on Supplementary Estimates due to that structural deficit, which has been building up over time because of funding, particularly on the teacher payroll side and the school transport side.

We had some success in terms of getting some of the baseline adjusted. That reflected some of the things, such as pay deal costs, which were not getting fully funded for in the past, but it did not fully resolve it. At the end of the day, one of the key responsibilities of government is to have a budget. We reach a point where we get what we can, and then we have to continue to engage with the Department of public expenditure and reform over the course of the current year to see how best we can manage it.

The officials knew after the figures were settled last October that the amount of resources the Department required were clearly insufficient to run and just maintain the services that it is already responsible for.

I-----

Sorry, I am not finished yet. I draw the witnesses' attention to some points that were made on page 15 of the very helpful briefing document they provided. It stated that as part of the outcomes from budget 2026 last October, the Department of education received a baseline adjustment of €304 million of the €720 million identified as a structural deficit by the Department at the time. This is the important point. It was agreed that the Department Vote would again require additional supplementary budget funding in 2026, and that further baseline adjustment funding would be needed in the future to reduce the reliance on supplementary funding going forward.

Will the witnesses confirm that it was agreed at the time, by the then Minister for public expenditure and his officials, that the resources being made available to the Department of education were insufficient to meet the existing demands on the services that it provides? That is notwithstanding the in-year changes that we have to contend with this year. The Department made the point eloquently in the resources it provided to us that not only has the Department got challenges from a structural point of view in meeting existing levels of service, but political priorities appeared to change in the middle of the year and the Department was then scratching around looking for more resources through Supplementary Estimates.

That has been the case for the past few years. That is understandable for the years 2020, 2021, 2022 and so on. The case is less persuasive for this year and last year, however. Can Mr. Tattan confirm that it was the Department of public expenditure that agreed that it would need to return with a Supplementary Estimate this year?

That is certainly our understanding of it. There was an agreement on both sides.

It is what Mr. Tattan said.

Yes.

It acknowledged during the budget negotiations last year that there were insufficient resources and it would have to go back to the Dáil – it is the Dáil that approves expenditure under the Constitution – for an additional ask of several hundred million euro to fund education. That is on the basis of an agreement. The particular passage states that, "It was also agreed that the Department would have to deliver reform measures in the future.". What are those reform measures?

I am pleased that the Deputy mentioned this because that was what I was going to say. I apologise for interrupting the Deputy. I did not realise he had not finished. That is the reform piece. The important bit in all of what the Deputy said is that this is on the basis that there will be no change in policy. It was based on existing policy in how we allocate teachers, run schools and so on. Effectively, it is based on no change in the policy. Part of getting the additional money this year was that there was a discussion at a political level around the need for reforms, including efficiency reforms. We have achieved some reforms over the years. For example, the system has improved massively in areas such as those under Mr. Clohessy, which cover the ETB's shared services for payroll, finance and so forth.

More is expected from the Department as a result of this additional-----

To be fair, it is a regular conversation within the Department and with the Department of public expenditure-----

As it should be.

-----around how we can improve the system we have. As others have acknowledged, it is an effective system but we should never rest on our laurels. We need to keep moving it forward because the world is always changing. We are constantly looking at that. We must make sure that what we are doing is ensuring that effectiveness is maintained. We cannot make a change for the sake of it or do something that would put the system in reverse.

Exactly, it needs to be justified and explained. In the limited time I have, I wish to address what is not seen in the documentation provided. Mr. Clohessy indicated that he will provide this committee with additional information on the school transport demand side. This is a significant Supplementary Estimate at this point in the year. It is unusual. It is also unusual in the context of the decision by the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, to impose a levy in 2027 on other Departments to address this issue. I am not making a value judgment on that position. That is what it is. We have not seen figures precisely setting out the amount of money that will go to the different headings. The different headings are outlined in the documentation and include: teachers and SNAs; additional school places; the SEN sector; the school transport scheme; enhanced supports for survivors of historical residential abuse; additional costs involved with staffing; and additional IR-related costs. I am assuming that might be to do with some anticipated future deal on school secretaries and caretakers. Can Mr. Tattan outline, in precise terms, the quantum of money going to each of those headings?

Yes. I have one small, technical point to make, however. Strictly, it is not a Supplementary Estimate. It is a re-baseline. I am happy to provide these figures to the committee in writing afterwards-----

Does Mr. Tattan have these figures today?

Yes.

I ask him to set those figures out.

Yes, I can do both. It breaks down into two parts. There is the structural deficit piece, which is €416 million. That is €301 million for school payroll and €115 million for school transport. Those two figures total €416 million. The emerging post-budget decisions amount to €230 million. That breaks down into €150 million for additional school places for children with special educational needs to cover additional costs for extra teachers, SNAs, related school transport and some operational costs; €40 million to maintain the school transport services for children and young people around the country and allow the fees to remain well below the rates that they were charged at a few years back; €13 million for survivors of historical residential abuse; and the balance to meet the industrial relations piece the Deputy referred to. They total €230 million.

That is very helpful. Can Mr. Tattan repeat the first figure?

Yes. Of the €230 million, a total of €150 million is for the special education piece.

I thank Mr. Tattan.

We will provide those figures in writing as well.

I appreciate that. That is useful.

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. What is the Department's total annual budget?

It is €14.1 billion. That is as it is now.

What is it being increased to?

That is with the increase included.

What was the original annual budget?

It was €13.45 billion.

Does Mr. Tattan believe that €14.1 billion will deliver everything needed in 2026?

That is the basis on which we are working. We are working on the basis that there will be no Supplementary Estimate this year.

What was the overrun last year?

The overrun last year was €580 million.

When did the Department know it had an overrun last year?

Mr. Whelan might come in on this.

It was a similar process to what was outlined for 2026. We would have-----

The Department realised halfway through the year.

We knew around the budget. We made our Estimates for budget 2025. That was in October 2024. Again, they were in-year decisions on top of that €580 million. That was not the full quantum of the-----

Was it 10% over in 2024?

It was over €1 billion.

We have missed the budget in three years by more than €2 billion.

Yes.

Some of that is to do with decisions we spoke about earlier, but there were also cost-of-living supports. Those cost-of-living supports were agreed at budget time, but they were paid out before the end of the year.

What were the cost-of-living supports?

Extra capitation was paid out to schools. Top-ups-----

That is an increase per head. I ask Mr. Whelan to clarify what capitation means.

Yes, there was an increase in capitation per head per pupil. Also-----

No. I know what it means but I am asking Mr. Whelan to explain what capitation means.

It is school funding per pupil-----

Yes, per head of population.

-----in a school. There was also a cost-of-living measure to reduce school transport fees as part of that package.

To clarify, in 2026, the €646 million is purely on the current side. I deal with the capital side.

That is what I was coming to. That was my next question.

There was a capital element in 2024, 2025 and previous years. At the high level, that flowed from two main reasons. First, there was underspent capital across other Government Departments. The Department of education has a strong record of delivery, and the Government reallocated funding towards the Department of education. Second, there were windfall receipts that were targeted towards additional capital investment – some €2.25 billion - across a number of years. The Department of education, given its strong track record of delivery, benefited as part of that. It is not the case that they were overruns per se. This was additional investment to support additional delivery.

It is €14.1 billion for current expenditure. Some 75% to 80% of that is for wages and salaries. Is that correct?

The figure of €14.1 billion is the totality of funding, both current and capital.

I know, but some 75% to 80% of it goes to wages and salaries.

Yes, approximately 75% of it is for wages and salaries.

That was my point.

On the current side, it is 86%. If one takes the capital expenditure out of it, on the current side, it constitutes 86% of current spending.

It is €14.1 billion for current expenditure. What is it for capital expenditure?

The total allocation across the national development plan is €7.55 billion. That is €1.6 billion-----

It is €1.6 billion.

That is on the capital side. Obviously, there is ICT funding and some Department IT capital as well.

Roughly, it is €1.6 billion. With that, over the next five years, how many brand new schools are planned to be built?

As a Department, following on from the national development plan allocations, the Department set out a clear sectoral investment plan, which it published in January. The first phase of that, that is, the first tranche of projects, sets out a list of 105 prioritised projects, which will be a combination-----

That is not the question.

Sorry, but-----

My time is limited. I am rushing because the Chair will kill me at seven minutes. He will cut me off. How many brand-new schools - not old schools that are going to be put in - will be built? Are we building any new schools for our new populated areas from the ground up?

Within the priorities we have, special schools are our greatest priority.

What about Gaelscoileanna? Are there any new Gaelscoileanna provided for in the plan in the next five years?

Yes.

Are they brand new schools from the ground up?

They are new school buildings, so-----

No, I am not talking about new school buildings. I am talking about brand new schools.

At this point in time, in terms of our demographic analysis and as part of our forward planning, our current, immediate requirements are for special schools. We have four new special schools planned for September 2026.

That is fine.

At this point in time, we do not have an immediate need for English-medium or Irish-medium schools beyond that but that is an area we closely monitor. We are not definitive in terms of those positions for the full five-year period of the NDP but at this point in time, that is our position.

I will go back to new school buildings. I live in north Kildare and there is a school, St. Patrick's National School, that has used temporary accommodation since 2008. I have raised this matter with the Department significantly, which is fine. A lot of work is ongoing and I am not questioning the work the Department is doing in the school to help refurbish it, but it is temporary accommodation that has been there since 2008. Do we feel we are in a position to deliver the schools if we have schools sitting in temporary accommodation for 18 years? How do we feel we will be able to deliver schools? There is also Celbridge Community School. St. Raphael's will be looking for a new site as well. How can we be sure we can actually get those built in that time?

There are two points to make. There were particular issues with that site in Celbridge that were outside of the Department's control and impacted on the timeline. More generally, the Department prioritisation process prioritises special schools in the first instance, namely, new school buildings for special schools. It then prioritises schools that are in temporary accommodation that have an urgent need for a permanent school building.

This is one of those.

We are conscious of that and we have others as well. We will prioritise those based on particular needs and criteria. There is a significant cohort of those within our published list of 105 projects that we published last January. This week, we are starting the prioritisation for the next tranche. They will be-----

Hopefully, the school will be on it. I thank Mr. Loftus.

I think Mr. Clohessy answered a question about transport. Does the Department include taxis in that?

That includes all forms of transport.

How much was spent on taxis annually to get children to school every day?

I will have to get the specifics of that for the Deputy. I have the overall figures but I do not have the specifics.

That figure was for taxis and buses. Could we get the taxi figure sent to us afterwards? We want to see a breakdown. How many taxis, roughly, do we believe are bringing children to school each day?

I give my apologies again but-----

Is it five, ten, 100, 200? Is it thousands?

It is in the low thousands, but I will have to clarify-----

It is in the low thousands. A low thousand number of children are getting taxis each day to school.

This is my last question. I think I saw €289 million in the 2024 accounts for Ukrainian children. What is the cost and how do we assess that cost? I see a reference in the briefing notes and that is why I am asking what the annual costs for the Ukrainian children are. I apologise to the Cathaoirleach. I knew we would be moving on straight away.

I will give a minute for somebody to answer that question.

The estimate for Ukrainian children is €170 million from the Department.

That is in annual funding?

Yes. In 2025 and previous years since the invasion of Ukraine, that money was provided on a temporary basis from the Department of public expenditure. That has been put into our permanent base. That was part of our structural baseline adjustment as well. They took that money at the start of the budget exercise and gave it back as part of our permanent funding that we secured. We received €170 million to go towards that, but it goes into our base and is treated like that. Previously, we had to ring-fence that funding. Now, it is permanent as part of our ongoing costs.

I thank everyone. I know I ripped through it but I had to.

The Deputy squeezed it in.

I am under a little bit of time pressure because I have to go into the Chamber, so I probably will not be able to use all of my time. I apologise, although it is not necessarily a big issue.

My question is more about what happened on the Department of public expenditure side and what the communications were in that sense. One of the things that stood out to me on budget day last year that I did not really notice other years was that the sums did not add up. If you take the sums from every page of the budget book, they just did not add up to the front page. I had a concern about that because it made me wonder what was going on. It is very difficult to analyse and respond to a budget if the sums do not fully add up. I am not asking the Department to respond on that; it is just where I am coming from.

As a result, I am interested in what exactly happened. I understand from the opening statement that the allocation the Department was given did not meet the forecasting. Is that correct?

That is correct, yes.

How much of a disparity was there?

At budget time, the disparity was €416 million.

It was €416 million. For the Department to make ends meet, there was a deficit of €416 million for the Department.

Just keeping the system running as was with no change, including no Government policy change, yes.

That was it. That was already a huge difference. In the last number of years, is that something that was common? Did that regularly happen? Was the amount forecasted by the Department as needed more than what was being allocated?

To an extent, yes. Each year, we seek to forecast that. We use the information we have available through our systems and convey that to the Department of public expenditure as part of the budgetary process. We then find that for other, broader budgetary constraints across government, we do not get everything we have sought. That is not atypical to an extent. We have to manage within that. There are then the Supplementary Estimates. As I mentioned earlier, we have had Supplementary Estimates over the last number of years.

When that became an issue for the Department whereby it had reached the point where additional funding was needed, how soon after budget day did the Department realise this would not work on its side? How soon did it let the Minister and the Department of public expenditure know?

At budget time, we knew there was a funding gap of that sort of order. Colleagues talked about reforms. We look at reforms. The Department of public expenditure would regularly ask whether there were ways that we could achieve efficiencies or reforms that might reduce that gap. Of course, we keep working that through with the Department.

If I had a number of days and I was not about to run into the Chamber, I would like to look at that. For my own personal interest, I would like to see that aspect of the Department of education going to the Department of public expenditure with a forecast of X amount for what was going to be required for what was an important Department and with a gap of €400 million already there. That is really significant.

By budget day, when the Department saw its clear allocation, it knew there was a deficit at that point. Reforms and so on are important but they are not exactly what I am trying to focus on. Post budget day, how soon did the Department of education have to go to the Department of public expenditure and make it very clear this would not work?

We are in constant engagement with the Department of public expenditure on a whole range of policy areas and the finance unit centrally, too. We have that regular engagement. It was a continuing process.

It was constant.

Yes.

The Department of public expenditure was aware immediately. What rationale was given for that underfunding?

Mr. Whelan may wish to contribute on this, but the Department of public expenditure was looking at this from a more top-down point of view and in a global way. It has an overall envelope within which it must work. There has to be an apportionment across different Departments. We are one of the big spenders - we are in the top three big spending Departments. The Department of public expenditure has to make a call within the constraints it has in terms of what is available.

Mr. Tattan does not think that any mistakes were made in terms of understanding what the Department of education needed. It was very clear to the Department of public expenditure that there was a €400 million difference. I am just interested because-----

I do not want to speak for that Department but I do not believe so.

It was just that a decision was made.

I think it was that a decision was made, but the Department of public expenditure has to approach the process from a different perspective than we approach it.

Yes. Mr. Whelan can go ahead.

As Mr. Tattan said, €416 million was the figure. In October 2025 for budget 2026, it was recognised that there would be additional funding needed in 2026. I do not want to speak for the Department of public expenditure, but my understanding is that it was giving us more time to see what we could do to come up with savings and reforms throughout 2026 to bridge the gap of €416 million. The way our budget works is slightly different than other Departments. When you do a budget for the Department of education in October, the school year has already started and you are already in the middle of the school year,-----

Yes.

-----so you are only getting one third of the savings. The Department of public expenditure was looking for reforms we could implement for the school year starting in September 2026 that would lead into the full-year costs in 2027 to give us time to pull back that €416 million figure.

It was looking for the reforms, whereas we were looking at the existing level of service without any policy changes.

That is interesting for us. There was then the whole issue of the change in the way the budget was done with existing levels of service. We in the committee were all trying to get our heads around how that works. The increase was always around 3% with existing levels of service. What was the impact of the change in how that was calculated? It is of interest because we are going into another budget cycle. I am trying to understand as much as I can.

There is an additionality piece when the summer economic statement comes out. That is the uplift in the year, but that is the additionality. When we look at the existing level of service, we would have presented before that this is the total cost with the existing level of service and this is the difference in what we have in the current budget for the year. Much of that would be due to demographics, pay deals and so forth. "A steady state" is the term that applies.

The Department of public expenditure calculated it differently this year, which meant it was more complicated to figure out from the Budget Book what was actually existing levels of service. Prior to that, it was just a line stating existing levels of service amount to X.

From the perspective of the Department's financial unit, we go from the bottom up. We will get the quantum of the total. It would not just be additionality and we would see the difference. There has not been much of a change. It is still called existing levels of service when we are looking at it.

Mr. Whelan is looking at it at departmental level.

Yes. We look at it at a department level. It is the additionality and the ELS is the figure, but we calculate it from the bottom up, so we get the total figure. Then we look for efficiencies and reforms within that overall figure, not just additionality. The approach is not just to look for add-ons all the time; it is to look for efficiencies and overall quantum within that. That is the approach we have always taken.

I only have 20 seconds left. That is very interesting. The change in the way the Budget Book presents existing levels of service did not have an impact on the Department. That is what Mr. Whelan is saying.

We work the same way with the figures, but we present the-----

That is fine. I was asking out of interest.

Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe chuig an gcoiste. The information booklet the witnesses provided to the committee states:

The Department works closely with the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation on expenditure matters. As part of the outcomes from budget 2026 last October, the Department of Education and Youth received a baseline adjustment of €304 million of the €720 million identified by the Department of Education and Youth at that time as a structural deficit. It was agreed that the Department of Education and Youth Vote would again require additional supplementary budget funding in 2026, and that further baseline adjustment funding would be needed in future to reduce the reliance on supplementary funding going forward.

At the time of the budget, it was agreed that there would need to be additional funding, or supplementary funding, for-----

Yes, for 2026. That was effectively in two areas, namely, our teacher payroll, to fund the number of teachers we have in the system, and our school transport scheme.

On budget day, in terms of the figures agreed for the Department of Education and Youth, it was explicitly agreed and understood that there would need to be a Supplementary Estimate and that what was being provided on the day was simply not going to meet the needs identified.

Yes, unless the Government made the decision to change policy in some way. Some change in policy-----

The Government was not going to shut schools, was it?

It was not going to shut schools but it is a big budget. A point that is sometimes made to us by our colleagues in the Department of public expenditure is whether, within the budget, there are ways that reforms can be achieved which would achieve some level of saving or efficiency. That would go some of the way.

Most of the budget is spent on SNA and teacher wages, increasing demand for special education for children with additional needs, which we are all aware of, and increased need for school transport. It was not likely that the Government was going to turn around and close schools, lay off staff or close down the transport system, leaving children in rural communities unable to get to school. None of those things were likely or possible. Where could the savings the Department of public expenditure is talking about possibly come from?

I thank the Deputy for the question. At the start of the year, there is a large gap. It is probably unlikely that the gap would be fully closed, but we did not rule out the possibility of moving to reduce that gap in different ways. There are various efficiencies and reforms. We talked a little about some of the stuff that has been done in payroll. We have done reforms in other areas to ensure greater effectiveness around the system. We have a very effective redeployment scheme for teachers and things like that too. There are many ways that we can ensure the system is as lean as it can possibly be. There are limitations to that, however. The Deputy is right - 86% of our current expenditure goes on pay and pensions.

On budget day, there was a €416 million deficit that the Department had identified. The Department of public expenditure was explicitly aware of it. There may have been talk of reform and efficiencies but, in fact, in the vast majority of cases, they are impossible to deliver without extreme measures that no one would want delivered. In fact, within a few months, there was a €646 million Supplementary Estimate. The gap was not closed or shortened, but widened.

In essence, I would say "Yes" on the first part. I would not say it was impossible, but it was very difficult for lots of reasons and not in any way a positive or beneficial thing in terms of the education system. In terms of the other issues, they all related to later decisions that were made. They would not have been known at budget time, but later decisions were made by the Government, some through emerging needs and some through choice.

In terms of the agreement between the Department of Education and Youth and the Department of public expenditure by budget day that there would need to be a Supplementary Estimate, will Mr. Tattan talk us through the discussions with the Department of public expenditure? How long did the discussions go on? Who was involved? Who, on the Department of public expenditure's side, agreed this? Could Mr. Tattan give us detail about how that agreement with the Department of public expenditure that there would need to be a Supplementary Estimate for the coming year was reached?

I will hand over to Mr. Whelan, who was the most directly involved among the group here. Ms O'Neill may want to add something as well.

On the budget negotiation, it goes back to the point that the Department of public expenditure was doing its job. It was looking for efficiencies and value for money across all Departments, including the Department of education. There has been a large investment in education over recent years, so it would have pointed out that there had been substantial and good investment in the education system, but it wanted financial sustainability as well. As it does with all Departments, the Department of public expenditure wanted efficiencies and reforms.

What we identified was the gap or structural deficit, as we saw it. It was €416 million, based on our bottom-up estimates of what was available. Then, on budget day, there was a recognition, as I said to another Deputy, that the Department would need time to do reforms and get the financial elements of that. There was a gap of €416 million, and the question was how we could narrow that gap and what reforms we could propose to the Government and that the Government would approve that would allow for the closure of that gap. That was buying time so that, instead of giving us the €416 million upfront, we would go through a process to see whether we could come up with reforms and savings in that area. That is what was happening around budget time. As it progressed, we continually engaged with the Department of public expenditure. That process continued after budget day. We went through a detailed process in which we went through all the options and scenarios. Ultimately, the decision was decided to give the addition funding and there were also other decisions made post budget.

On the Department of public expenditure side, who was agreeing this with the Department of Education and Youth? Was it agreed at ministerial level or among officials? Where was it agreed?

It was agreed at the ministerial bilateral meetings. At official level and in ministerial bilateral meetings, I would have been in the discussions.

Was a Supplementary Estimate part of the agreement in discussions at ministerial and official level between the two Departments?

The discussion on additional funding was whether it would be a Supplementary Estimate or a further baseline adjustment. The quantum would not have been agreed. The Department would have been looking for reform. There would be a quantum of how much we could-----

It was explicitly clear that a €416 million deficit had been identified and there was explicit agreement that additional funding would be provided in the coming year.

The €416 million would have been our figures or estimates. It may be the case that the Department of public expenditure did not accept the quantum but it accepted that extra funding would be required for an existing level of services. It would be looking for reforms on top of that to bring it down.

Within a few months, it had accepted a figure of €646 million. Were there explicit agreements and understandings in previous years that there would be Supplementary Estimates or additional funding by budget day? Was that part of the understanding or is this the first time it has happened?

It would not have been an explicit agreement. We would have pointed out that the funding we had received would require policy changes to implement. It was not an explicit agreement where we were told we were not getting supplementary funding and that we would have to do those reforms if we want to come in on budget.

That is what is would have been in previous years. This year-----

We went through the process of the existing level of service. We would have gone through the whole process of trying to do those reforms but, ultimately, we got a supplementary budget.

However, the explicit agreement that there would be additional funding this year involved the Ministers as well as the officials.

Correct.

That is significant in terms of us as a budgetary oversight committee and in terms of a lot of the narrative. There are levies going onto other Departments because allegedly the Department of Education and Youth has a budget overrun. Actually, though, what we are hearing today is that there was explicit agreement and understanding by the Department of public expenditure and reform, including at a ministerial level, that, in fact, there was not really a budget overrun. On budget day, they knew there was a €460 million structural deficit and there was an agreement that there would be additional funding to help meet that deficit. That is very different from the rationale that has been given for other Departments being hit with fines.

I will take my slot now.

Has there been any underspent capital for the year 2026?

No. Every year, we have spent all our moneys and the extra moneys that have been provided by other Departments and-----

I have a question on that then. I will ask short questions. That is the way I want to work this. When it comes to the capital expenditure and the expenditure of all the schools in that regard, if there was fundraising done within those schools and it was a rollover from one year to the next of moneys that were fundraised within the schools by parents or communities for a project, would that be included in underspent capital in the Department's figures? Let us remember that there are accounts coming at the end of the year. I am on a board myself and I examine the different processes of all the different features that come down along all the different capital elements that can be spent on. The one thing I am seeing the whole time is that if a school has money under a heading at the end of the year, I look at it as money in its account that it does not need for next year.

There are a couple of things there. There can be differences between how capital moneys are treated and how current funding is treated. Ms O'Neill can talk about the current side of things. From the capital perspective, my roommate is looking at what the Government allocates to the Department to support the operation of the school system and ensure that every child has a school place. That is of the order of the €1.6 billion annually. Our approach to that is that we do our sectoral investment plan or prioritise projects or various schemes, and we have all that published in a clear and transparent way. Local fundraising that might be done to support a capital project or things like that are managed at local level. That is not something we get directly involved in per se but-----

If the Department is doing accounts allocations at the end of the year and the school has to show what is in its accounts, if it had €50,000 less at the end of the year, is that put in under the sequence of what it would have actually been allocated the year before for funding to the school itself?

No. We are looking at our funding, and the Department does its own annual accounts in that regard. Separately, each school is required to do its own accounts. They submit them to the financial services support unit, and that is just part of the governance arrangements around the school system.

On the current side, it would not be taken into consideration by the Department in deciding on capitation funding or anything.

That is fine.

I am looking at the systems here and at 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 supplementary funding. Some of them are on page 13. It shows costs similar to 2025. That is the same in 2022. There was a spend of €925 million in 2022, €850 million in 2023, €1.088 billion in 2024 and then €580 million in 2025. Now we are at €650 million in 2026. I am looking at this funding region. I come from a business sector myself. I was forecasting across this. There is a sequence here. Every year, there is a sequence as to where this is going. Some of these have been put down to 17,000 Ukrainian children across the system. When the Department has this over a five-year sequence and can see that supplementary spending gross throughout the year, surely when it is forecasting, it forecasts that into its next budgetary cycle.

I will let my colleagues come in on the current side, but just from the capital perspective, the capital element was a portion of those amounts in those particular years, and a significant portion in some years. That capital element was not an overrun element by the Department. It would be incorrect to characterise it as such. As I said earlier to Deputy Neville in response to questions from him, there were two main reasons for that additional funding. One was a recognition that the Department has a strong track record of delivery. We have delivered over 1,400 projects from 2020 up to the present, so a very strong track record of delivery. The Government and the Department of public expenditure agreed to reallocate underspend in other Departments to the Department of education to recognise the strong importance of investing in education and in school buildings. That was one reason.

I will let somebody else come in now as well.

The second reason is that there was €2.25 billion in windfall tax receipts and the Department was a significant beneficiary of those as well. They were the main reasons. From a capital perspective, our job is to live within our NDP allocation. These were extra moneys provided. We accepted them because we are ambitious as to what we want to do but we work within the parameters that are available.

There are two other main pieces in addition to the capital that Mr. Loftus has talked about. There were a number of post-budget decisions that were made by the Government, and that was common across a number of other sectors and Departments on issues such as the cost of living and Covid-19. A lot of supports were provided to schools in some of those years and as regards Ukraine, which was unforeseen. Some of that was held through a central contingency pot; therefore, that of itself was automatically going to create a Supplementary Estimate by the nature of doing it that way. The third piece is the structural deficit that we have talked about.

I will move on to transport. As regards the transport network, there was an increase of 35% in expenditure on transport. All the transport networks going to the schools are usually three- or five-year contracts to the bus providers. Why then is there a 35% increase in expenditure on the transport network if people are tied into a contract for three years or five years? Where is the 35% overspend in transport coming from?

Typically, and in the first instance, when Bus Éireann goes to tender, it does so annually and usually for about 20% of the entire service. It is approximately five-year contracts that are awarded in certain instances, depending on the nature of what is required. Particularly in special education, it might be one year, or if there are contract handbacks or something of that nature, one-year contracts may be awarded directly. There has not been a 35% increase per se. There have been increases year on year, particularly in terms of the number of children who are benefiting from it from approximately 118,000 in 2019 to 181,000 last year. The costs have risen every year. When Bus Éireann goes to tender, it does so competitively. It gets the best rate it can. There have been significant increases of one description or another because of fuel volatility and increases in the number of SEN pupils. There was a question asked about this already in the context of the number of taxis, etc. The mix and the type of vehicle being used vary, so the costs are not rising in a standard amount-----

A lot of the bigger buses can no longer travel in certain areas or within rural areas, where the scheme has been reduced to two buses doing separate routes. Are extra buses allocated this year compared with other years in the forecast? They go out to tender every year for a bus network. What we see across the board now relates to the age group of people and licensing for the larger buses. Furthermore, some of the larger buses cannot travel some of the roads under the criteria that are there. Now 16-seater or 18-seater buses are being put on, and they involve different licensing, which means extra bus capacity.

Typically, the portal opens for applicants to make their applications and to make payments. When we get details of the number of people who have applied, it gives Bus Éireann the opportunity to assess exactly the mix and blend of buses and other vehicles that are required. It is not specifically to say that they are moving from one type of vehicle to another. It really depends on the number of learners who have to be moved at any particular point in time. We have eligibility criteria that we apply, and it is on that basis that Bus Éireann makes those assessments on an annual basis.

It is an enigma. It is like a Sherlock Holmes mystery, trying to get to the bottom of what has happened with the additional allocation or Supplementary Estimate. The witnesses may have explained this and if so, my apologies. I was not here earlier. I was at another committee meeting and in the Dáil. I think I heard the witnesses saying there was a structural deficit and yet, they are also saying that the Department did not do bad budgeting. There was a structural deficit that required additional funding in the Supplementary Estimate but the Department did not do bad budgeting. Why was it not in the budget if it knew it was there and the Department was not doing bad budgeting? We also get constant references to post-budgetary decisions and that something else happened. Might the something else have been, for example, that the Government thought it was going to make savings based on the circular on special needs and that it was going to redeploy people and there would be efficiencies in terms of moving SNAs around? When that went down like a lead balloon with SNAs, school communities, parents and children with special needs, suddenly the Minister realised that the Department was not going to get the savings that it thought it would. It was going to need to allocate additional money because those savings were not available. Is that what happened? I am still really struggling to understand what happened.

I thank the Deputy for the question. I will do my best to answer it. We were saying back in October when the budget was being decided for 2026 that there was a structural deficit at that stage. There was a gap between what we were forecasting we would need and -----

And what the Department was given.

That is right. That is the starting point. That left us with a gap. The Department of public expenditure has a responsibility to ensure it only allocates so much money in terms of what is available to it. It has to apportion it across Departments in a way that is fair and reflective of Government priorities and so on. We did not receive everything that we felt we needed to keep the existing level of service on track. In order to do that within the money we had, we would have to change tack in some way or change policy in some way. We talked previously with some of the Deputy's committee colleagues about the difficulty with-----

Like, for example, reducing the number of SNAs.

Just to take that point, we were not reducing the overall number of SNAs, but we were redeploying them where they were most needed. However, there was a Government decision there to retain the SNAs where they are for the next school year and that is one of the post-budget decisions that we are referring to here.

So afterwards the Department of public expenditure realised it had better give the Department of education the money it asked for in the first place. Is that what Mr. Tattan means?

I am not saying it in that way. What I am saying is that the Government made a call in light of some of the concerns that were raised at the time publicly by some schools that were losing SNAs that it would leave those SNAs in place. That meant additional moneys would be required to meet the costs because they were staying put and we could not redeploy them to another school where they might be needed, yet there was a child in that other school who needed SNA support. That is part of it. It is not by any means the largest part of it but it is a portion of it. There was also an emerging demand more generally in terms of special class provision in special education. Some of that is a result of the work that was done last year in having the portal open to parents so that they could signal the need for their child to have a special class place. That was done at an earlier stage in the year so it helped from a planning point of view in trying to better ensure that we had special class places. Ms Mannion spoke earlier about the number of places that are opening up. We knew at an earlier point that they would be needed but it costs more to ensure those places are provided.

Again, the Department had not received as much as it needed for that.

No, but again, part of this is about the budgetary cycle. Mr. Whelan talked earlier about the fact that the budget is usually the first week of October. We are trying to forecast what might be needed for the following September, which is nearly a year away. We still believe we can forecast well but sometimes, as with things like this, there is a greater emerging need there. In most cases we can forecast well but sometimes-----

Did an awareness in the Government or the Department of public expenditure, or a combination of the two, of both of these issues emerge in the aftermath of the concerns and protests and the crisis around special needs provision generally? Was it after this that this new recognition dawned on the Department of public expenditure?

I will not speak for that Department but we know what happened publicly. Concerns were raised and the Government made the decision to leave the SNAs in place.

Yes, but also in terms of class provision.

That was something else. Ms Mannion can talk in more detail about that but there was an emerging demand there. That is not about a reaction or a response to a public reaction to something; that is about ensuring that there spaces in special classes-----

Did the Department not know about the class demand before the budget?

No, at budget time we did not know the extent. It had not crystallised at that point. Ms Mannion can say more about that.

I thank the Deputy for the question. We have done a huge amount of work in the forward planning space on special education. We started intensively in 2022. We went from about 300 special classes per year to 407 last year and we are at 565 today, which is the largest number ever. One of the issues that emerged, and we have spoken about this previously, was around, for example, places in Dublin where three in every six children in a special class had not come forward to the NCSE. They had a recommendation for a special class place but they did not come forward to the NCSE looking for that class. They potentially waited until a class opened in their school so we were trying to provide a level of service without knowing which children would need it in which individual school. That is a challenge in a scenario where we have 4,000 schools and every six places have to be worked through at an individual and local level. In Dublin in particular, and I use it as an example, we would see that when we opened a new special class, three of every six children had not come forward to the NCSE. That was why we introduced the parent notify process-----

Why had they not come forward?.

We know, for instance, that of the children who have come forward from 1 October last year, 75% of them were in the existing school. What we see is that if a child is in first class, for example, unless the special class opens in the school the child is in, the parents may not wish to move the child to a special class in the school down the road. They may wish to stay in the mainstream provision with supports and may not opt to move them unless the class is in their school.

Part of the reason for the introduction of the parent notify process was to ensure that we would have a full understanding of the number of children who needed places. The parent notify deadline was 1 October 2025. At that point, the budgetary process was largely complete. We had been working right through the summer with our colleagues in the Department of public expenditure. We got funding to support additional places at a point in time in the budget. As the emerging need came forward, to be fair to our colleagues, we worked really closely with them and identified that additional funding was to be provided. The Government did, as part of the €646 million package, give that additional funding so that we can have the scale of additional special education in place for September 2026. As I said, there are 565 special classes and this year we are going to have 600 additional special school places on top of all of those that we have. We have had more than a 100% increase in special class places in recent years, with 20 new special schools. The Government and the Department of public expenditure have been really responsive in terms of special education. We hope that this means parents will see that there are now more special education places in every county in Ireland, primary and post-primary, than ever before. There are more places in local schools for children with special educational needs. In terms of some of the challenges that we have seen in recent years, we as officials working directly with parents and advocacy groups never want to see parents in that situation. We hope that this year, with the scale of provision we have made, parents will see a big change on the ground in terms of provision for children with special educational needs.

Will every child have a place?

That is absolutely our intention. We have sanctioned the places. The schools are now working through their admissions policies. We have 120 SENOs on the ground, working closely with parents. The information back from the NCSE is that most of the classes have been sanctioned across the bulk of the counties. We will see some additional classes in places like Dublin, where we continue to work through that need. The new inclusive classes, of which the Deputy will be aware, have been a game-changer for the 75% of children already in school. If they want to stay in the school, the NCSE can work with them to get the teachers, the SNAs and the capitation to allow them to stay in their own school. We have seen significant additional provision there. A total of 56 of the 565 classes are new, inclusive classes across primary and post-primary.

Is that a "Yes"?

That is the intention.

I will follow on with a few points. I do not expect Mr. Tattan to have a crystal ball regarding the €416 million structural deficit, but what is his sense of what will happen in the 2027 budget? Will he face the same issue or does he think he will be allocated funding? Does he have any sense of how that will look?

I probably would need a crystal ball for 2027. One of the key points of success for us out of this exercise is that our base funding has been fixed now, as we see it. The structural deficit that has been there for a number of years was added to with some other post-budget decisions, but that has been fixed so we should not end up in the same situation again. Those sorts of Supplementary Estimates we have been referring to in the past year is where we effectively defaulted in the absence of any other position to be in. We should not face that next year.

So Mr. Tattan would not expect to see a €416 million shortfall.

No, we would not. It puts us in a much better, financially sustainable position. That was one of the key points.

That would be my whole view as well from my experience working in a private industry for many years. We must make budgets as realistic as possible. We want to identify savings but we must make budgets realistic. It looks to me like they were not always realistic in terms of what Mr. Tattan had to grapple with last October.

On a separate point, the Department has a massive challenge with significant demands on the one hand and trying to look at cost savings on the other. My sense is that we are a little bit weak on cost savings. Has Mr. Tattan identified areas where savings could be made, be it on transport, school books or whatever? I know school meals do not come under the Department's budget. What is his sense of where he feels cost savings might be made?

I might hand over to Mr. Clohessy because work is being done to reform school transport that might be of interest to the Deputy.

As I said earlier, it is challenging to a degree, as 86% of the current allocation goes on paying pensions, about another 6% or so is on capitation – basic funding for schools - and another 4% or so is on school transport. We are down to very few things-----

There is very little room for discretion to squeeze.

To be fair, this Government and previous governments – I worked in the Department during the years of financial crisis – were very protective of education through all of that time. We were still able to recruit teachers when no recruitment effectively took place in the public service. Very strong cognisance has been taken of the fact that something was not done that might have achieved supposed efficiencies but that would have been harmful for-----

Education is one of the strengths of our nation so we do not want to undermine it. I completely support that.

That said, it is always still possible to look for reforms. Colleagues here, among others, are working in that space all the time. I might go to Mr. Clohessy, Ms O'Neill and Mr. Loftus if we have time.

Just to reiterate, as Mr. Tattan has said, when 86% of the total operational spend is on pay and pensions-----

I get that, yes, but on the other hand it means it is fixed as well so it is not going to increase massively either. There are two ways of looking that.

That is true, absolutely, but it is quite limited. Some of the initiatives we have undertaken in particular have been aggressively procuring for things, trying to make sure we achieve best value for money. We have been putting frameworks in place to ensure schools get best value for money in utilities, for example, and school books. The Deputy referred to school meals. We have been working with colleagues in the Department of Social Protection to put procurement documentation in place to support the work with it to ensure we achieve best value for money. That is one of the primary aims.

The thing that scares me is when I look at the percentages and I see school transport has gone up by 34%. That is the case also with a number of other headings. I know they are smaller numbers but it is a psychology and an approach to saving money. For example, people were able to buy a school bus ticket for €50 and I hear anecdotally they are not even used. The Department has to pay a bus provider or Bus Éireann the full whack for each person's ticket even though it may not be used. That is a very small anecdotal example. I am sure Mr. Clohessy has a lot more detailed analysis of where we could make savings. Has he identified particular savings?

Before my colleague, Ms O'Neill, comes in, a review of school transport was undertaken in 2024 and we have run a series of pilots in the interim to see what works and how we might be able to scale them to the best of our ability. One of them is to look at e-ticketing to see what seat utilisation is like. There are instances where we are aware that seat utilisation is not as optimal as it might be and we want to try to make sure we use every single seat.

At present, how school transport works is that if you sell a ticket, you must have a seat for a child because each child needs to have a seat belt. Whether they use the seat or not, we have to make sure it is available in the event that they turn up. We are hoping to utilise and leverage technology to maximise what we can achieve with it. It may be possible, dare I say it, to oversell those seats in the right circumstances where we have very good and solid data. Currently, we do not really have that. There are other pieces we are doing around reform of some of the special educational needs transport and we are looking at the best way to support learners in getting to school. We are looking at other aspects and trying to come up with the best route possible to maximise the number of children accessing transport. We are using a GIS model for that to try to see what is the best way to map out routes and make sure that works to the best of our ability. We have undertaken 25 different pilots and we hope to analyse them this year. We will be analysing them to see what makes the most sense and how we might be able to scale them across the country, where it makes sense to do so.

This is my last question. The pensions ratio of 50,000:114,000 is a little over 2.2 workers, or a little fewer than that, to one. In the general population there are 800,000 pensioners and maybe 2.8 million workers, which is over 3:1. I get that some teachers retire early. I am a great admirer of teachers. A lot of my family have been teachers, and I was one myself for a short while. Does the Department do projections on what salaries and pensions will look like in five or ten years' time and what the ratio will look like?

Yes, we do analysis on our pensions. The Department of public expenditure does analysis on pensions as well at a macro level. It does it by sector in education but we do our own analysis on the projected pensions. We project it to increase year on year.

In terms of payroll, if we look at the Department's budget for the last 20 years, there have been increasing enrolments of more than 200,000 pupils in the system. We believe we are at the peak now. Numbers in primary education are starting to come down, and in post-primary they will start to come down from this point as well. For the next 15-plus years the numbers are going to be coming down, we reckon by close to 130,000. When we look at our Vote, the main drivers of expenditure have been public sector pay deals, special educational needs and the demands that have been arising in Ireland and globally. We have been meeting those needs. Demographics have been going up. Of the three main drivers within the Vote, two are now going to reverse and go back the other way. That will makes us more financially sustainable. When the numbers come down, we have a model that is very transparent and rules based. It is linked to enrolment, capitation and teacher numbers and the like.

If the pupil-teacher ratio reduces, the Department will retain a higher overhead of salaries with a lower cohort of kids. How does the Department envisage that going forward? Is the Department going to aim for 23:1? What is the projection?

To respond to the Deputy's earlier point about achieving efficiencies and value for money, we constantly strive to achieve those efficiencies in the system. For example, in teacher allocation, we have a really set, transparent, efficient and fair set of rules that are consistently applied across all schools. At this time of year, we see queries about why a particular school is losing a teacher or why teacher numbers are being reduced. The answer is that we apply those rules rigidly and consistently so that we achieve those efficiencies and so that we can be sure we are not going over our budget. That is a really important part of the system, as is the redeployment. This year we will be redeploying 1,000 teachers across the system. That is a result of movement and changes in demographics but it is also a result of things, for example, like the DEIS plus scheme and teachers moving from one place to another.

The staffing schedule sets out exactly how teachers are allocated to schools. It allows for a general average of 23:1 in classrooms but that is on a scale so we have a much lower pupil-teacher ratio. The current pupil-teacher ratio is 12.8:1 in primary schools and class size is a different measure.

The pupil-teacher ratio is the number of pupils in a school divided by the number of teachers in a school, and that figure at the moment is around 12.8 to 1.

It is really low in primary schools.

It is.

It is extremely low.

Yes, so the pupil-teacher ratio-----

Are there savings to be made that would allow that to be increased?

I have to let other speakers have a chance to come in.

I might just say that it is important not to conflate class size and pupil-teacher ratio because they are two different measures.

One phenomenon I come across is that schools are approved to come into existence but then spend years waiting for the actual school building. I wonder about the planning for that. I can think of so many examples, including Dún Laoghaire Educate Together National School and Blackrock Educate Together Secondary School. There is an announcement that a school has been approved - the announcements were years ago in the cases of the Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire schools, and there are lots of others I can think of - and then they are in temporary accommodation for years. Should there not be closer co-ordination between the approval of a school and the actual provision of the money to physically put the school into existence, rather than it having a sort of temporary existence for years? I do not know if the witnesses could help me understand that.

They are caught in limbo.

Yes, they are caught in limbo.

I thank the Deputy for the question. There are a couple of points from the Department's perspective. We have a very strong forward planning process within the Department. That looks at the long term, which is beyond 2040, the medium term, which is over the next ten years, and the more immediate term, which is the next school year ahead. In terms of individual schools, I appreciate the Deputy is looking at this from his constituency perspective. My job has a national remit, so I have to look at this across all of the system. We have to look at it as part of the NDP process, where the parameters are of what we can deliver and where our needs are. By its nature, therefore, we have to prioritise.

In that regard, if we look at our NDP sectoral investment plan, we have prioritised special schools. We have also prioritised schools in temporary accommodation that have urgent accommodation needs and schools that have significant condition or demographic needs as well. Within all those categories and all the schools that are in temporary accommodation, for example, each is considered on its merits. We look at where the highest priority pressure ones that have particular needs are within that and we move forward with those. We announced 105 school building projects in our first tranche of priorities back in January. There will be a cohort of schools within that and they will be progressing to construction in 2026-27. Dún Laoghaire Educate Together National School will be part of that process, along with many other new school buildings for schools that are in temporary accommodation. We are now commencing the second tranche in respect of the prioritisation process for those, in terms of engagement with patrons and national bodies, which we will commence later this week.

There are significant needs. When we look at the scale of what we have to manage, each year circa 140,000 children either start school at junior infants or first year or change school. That is the scale of what we are managing. An individual school can look at this from its own perspective. Dare I say it, a TD can look at it from his or her own constituency perspective. We have to take a system-wide perspective and look at what we can manage within our NDP parameters and prioritise accordingly.

I get what Mr. Loftus is saying but, at the end of the day, is it just a budgetary matter based on the parameters that are there? If the Department approves a school, that means it knows the school is needed but it will be years before it actually physically provides that school.

Not necessarily. It depends on the particular circumstances. When looking at a new school, we can be looking at site requirements and particular site issues. For example, the Deputy is based in south Dublin. South Dublin is one of the more challenging areas for us in terms of acquiring sites just because of the constraints in that area, whereas in other-----

In the case of Blackrock Educate Together Secondary School, it has had a site for a few years in Newtownpark Avenue.

Yes.

I just do not understand why there are delays. Genuinely, I do not understand.

If the Deputy looks at our NDP investment plan and the priorities within that, back in January, we announced a €1.6 billion cohort of projects for those 105 projects that we are delivering. Those are the parameters we are working within. That is what we needed to prioritise. Then, like other schools, the Blackrock school and the other schools of this world that are still in temporary accommodation will be considered as part of our next tranche of projects to move forward in terms of those that are in the advanced stages of design and pre-tender stage and things like that.

Is it the case that if more money was allocated, the Department could do more sooner or is Mr. Loftus saying that it is too big for the Department to manage?

No, money talks, at the end of the day. In fairness to Government and the Department of public expenditure, as outlined in the briefing document we provided, significant additional capital money was provided to the Department of education over the last number of years. That was as a result of maybe underspent capital in other areas and Departments and also the windfall receipts. In fairness, additional supports have been provided, and we have delivered hugely. We have delivered over 1,400 school building projects that add capacity, be it large-scale additional accommodation schemes or modular projects, since 2020. That is very strong investment and while there are very significant needs to be managed, it is always a case of prioritising them. There is also a balance to be achieved in that we are in a challenging enough construction sector environment and we have to manage that. The more we put into the system, the more, potentially, we can drive inflation as well. We are always very conscious of maximising value for money.

I have another one or two questions. Mr. Clohessy mentioned that the Department is looking at getting best value for money for school meals. Surely it should be best value for money for quality food. In a lot of schools, there is franchising going on, where one company could be delivering food to ten or 20 schools. Instead of having a franchise system, if schools were able to provide quality food in a locality, it might create employment. There is also local knowledge because the people delivering the food to the schools are local. When we look at the data, it shows that when meals are provided locally, there are fewer complaints than when we go out to franchising. This causes a concern around getting quality food. In Mr. Clohessy's own words, best value for money does not mean best quality food.

If we look at sequencing, food should be provided for schools in areas in which it can be provided at a reasonable cost, rather than going out to franchising and looking for best value for money, which can bring down quality. If we look at complaints, the issue across the country in the last number of years was related to people coming in and franchising. They could be providing school meals for ten schools. There were a number of complaints about the quality of the food in those cases. Is that a concern to the Department? Could it work with particular schools so that they could provide the meals themselves at a reasonable cost?

In the policy area, in the first instance, this is a matter for the Department of Social Protection. In the past 18 months or so, we have been working very closely with that Department as part of an interdepartmental working group, with a number of colleagues from the HSE, the Department of Health, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, the Health and Safety Authority and colleagues in planning and building, to try to set out the best possible scenarios we can to try to problem-solve where there are issues presenting.

It is very important to note there are now 3,000 primary schools that are eligible for it and there are different issues and challenges presenting in different areas. Over the last while, as a Department, we have provided for procurement documentation with a very robust contract for each of the schools. We have tried to support the schools in terms of procuring that, wherever the service might come from, to ensure it meets that minimum standard. We have more work to do. The education and youth committee met quite recently and produced a report that we actually considered today. We have been working with colleagues across the various Departments and agencies over the last while to see how we might be able to enhance this further. The scale of it is very significant. I think the spend is about €280 million and I think we will be a number of years working through this to get this to the best possible outcomes. It is really important in terms of getting the value for money that we get children to attend school. There are some issues, challenges and concerns with attendance at times. Ms O'Neill may be able to speak to that. This is an important initiative around that, as well as addressing other areas of challenge and societal issues that might be there. It has been good, but we would acknowledge there is work to do. We are very keen to work with this and work with the interdepartmental working group to resolve as many of the problems as we possibly can.

To add to what Mr. Clohessy said, school attendance is something we have put a huge amount of emphasis on and we are seeing a slight uptick. Post-Covid attendance was very challenging. We saw significant decreases in school attendance and we put significant time, effort and investment into supporting schools to increase their attendance through drives, various initiatives and now through a structured support programme run by the Tusla education support service, TESS, which is called Anseo. This has been working over the last school year with 60 schools and it is now rolling out to another 200-plus schools. We are seeing the results of that now. To Mr. Clohessy's point, we are seeing that there is also a connection between attendance and school meals.

I have a question for Mr. Loftus. I come from a construction background and have been in construction all my life. On the point of delivery of school projects, from the point of view of inflation costs and all the rest of it, and delivery on budget, on time, is the Department looking at projects as design and build? The responsibility then goes back to the contractor for the design and build, so it is on budget and on time. This would ensure that we would not have something like the children's hospital which has gone €1 billion over budget. How does the Department control the design and build element for school projects?

There are a couple of things. We use the standard forms of public works contract. The children's hospital would have used a variation or a different form. I am just stating that for clarity. The second thing is we have a strong focus in terms of our governance and cost control mechanisms and procedures. We have various stages of our process and managing all of that. We have a strong suite of design team procedures in relation to managing that.

Given the scale of the school estate and the scale of the school building programme, we have a variety of delivery mechanisms. Design and build is one of those. We regard it as very significant and positive. We typically have that for the new school buildings on greenfield sites or brownfield sites. It works pretty cleanly on those large-scale projects. We made a conscious decision in the last few years to bring in the tier 1 contractors and have a focus on them as part of our design and build frameworks. With that we get tier 1 contractors who are able to deliver large campus projects at scale in parallel with other projects and things like that.

Beyond that we have a variety of procurement frameworks. Traditionally, the employer-led design, which we regard as a very good, solid construction delivery method for us, would have been procured on a school-by-school basis and things like that. As part of our reform and efficiency measures across the plan and building unit, we have put in place a contractor's framework. That will be a new initiative and we think that will be very positive.

For the smaller projects the Department would put in for the likes of modular builds. To me, it is the right way of doing things, because there is a design and a system that works. There is a certain amount of control over the cost systems, bar what we see from an inflationary cost, or putting the price on a different model. The price is basically nailed down. For schools that do not want a modular building and want a construction building it can be delivered for the same price as a modular build. I presume that would be acceptable as well then?

Yes, typically so. With our modular accommodation framework we have put a very strong emphasis on the quality of the product. We have found that the culture has changed hugely and the modular projects of today are a world of a difference to the old prefabs of the past when we were in school. We have even had scenarios where schools might be in a pipeline for traditional and they see the quality of the modular and they consider moving over to the modular as a delivery mechanism. Currently, it is a challenging construction sector environment. We are managing that as best we can, even in the area of the special classes. Ms Mannion mentioned the total of about 565 special classes we are opening for the coming school year. We are managing about 90% of those within existing accommodation by repurposing existing accommodation. That is probably one of the best examples of efficiency and reform measures that are achieving real savings and maximising what the State gets for the investment it puts in the NDP for the Department of education.