I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is good to have a Minister of State in the Department taking this important Commencement matter. I acknowledge the significant achievements and improvements that have taken place in primary education in recent years. Free school meals is an inspired programme to ensure every young person has a hot meal once a day. There is also the availability of free schoolbooks. When we were going to school, we bought second-hand books and all sorts of things. Now, the books are available courtesy of the State. It is an initiative that leads to equality. While all of those improvements are welcome, necessary and important, the basics are challenged significantly. Schools across the country are facing increased costs when it comes to essential issues such as cleaning, maintenance, heating and electricity. While in budget 2025 the primary school capitation grant was increased by €24 to €224, it goes no way to meeting the costs schools face daily. The authorities in Sixmilebridge national school in County Clare, a fantastic facility, have been in contract with me. I pay tribute to Gareth Heagney, the principal, and his team of teachers and staff for their wonderful work in that great facility. The problem is they are facing enormous costs. On yearly basis in recent years, they have faced up to a €100,000 budget deficit. While school principals have an obligation to be prudent, to manage financially and to try to balance books, they are not supposed to or expected to, nor should they be, deal with financial crises. He, like many other principals, is dealing with a financial crisis. A €100,000 deficit is very hard to make up. To achieve that, they had to cut their cleaning budget by 60%. We all know how important hygiene and clean schools are. To have to cut the budget by 60% is difficult. They are looking at doing a deep clean over the summer, as many schools do, and the quotes they have received are anything from €25,000 to €40,000, which is unsustainable. I am looking for a significant increase in the capitation fund per student for next year to help Gareth and other principals around the country address these costs and be able to focus on the work they are supposed to be focused on, which is managing a school and ensuring the children get the best education. This extra pressure and stress they are under is eating into their time. They make the students their number one priority so in order to find the headspace and time to deal with this, it has to be done outside of working hours. It puts pressure on boards of management to organise fundraisers and so on. Outside of the need for an immediate increase in the capitation grant, we also need to look at reviewing the capitation structure because if in a particular year, there is a drop of 20 or 30 students in a school, the capitation drops. There needs to be a baseline that the capitation reflects. If there is a sudden drop for a year or two, a school should not suffer financially. The hot school meals, free schoolbooks and other Government initiatives are fantastic but we cannot lose sight of the basics, which is happening now. We need to maintain our schools and keep them clean, lit and heated. I call on the Minister of State to respond positively.

I thank the Senator for the opportunity to outline the capitation issue to the Seanad. I thank him for his ongoing engagement on education issues. He has been in contact with me over many of them. It is important public representatives continue to engage positively in relation to education.

The Government is committed to increasing funding to support schools and the programme for Government commits to increasing capitation funding to schools of all types to ensure schools can meet everyday running costs. As we all know, they are increasing. The commitment builds on the progress made in recent years. The Department secured an extra €39 million in budget 2026 towards increased capitation funding for primary, post-primary and special schools to provide additional financial supports towards their running costs. This will see an increase in the standard capitation rates paid to schools of €50 per pupil for primary schools, from €224 to €274, and of €20 per student for post-primary schools, from €386 to €406. This will also allow for an increase of €20 in capitation rates for urban band one DEIS primary schools, increasing the mainstream primary rate in these schools to €294. The increased capitation rates will also see special schools receiving the same rates of mainstream capitation for young people aged 12 and over as for their peers in mainstream post-primary schools. These increases will take effect from September 2026. The funding will benefit schools around the country in managing their day-to-day running costs. Schools will receive their next capitation payment in June. The increases announced in budget 2026 are in addition to the 12% increases as part of budget 2025. The past three budgets have resulted in an increase in the level of capitation grant rates of almost 50%, 49.7%, or €91 to primary and 28.5%, or €90, to post-primary schools.

The Department is committed to providing funding to recognised primary and post-primary schools in the free education system by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the capitation grant to cater for day-to-day running costs of a school such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general upkeep and the ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff. Schools have flexibility to use the capitation fund provided for general running costs and ancillary funding provided for caretaking and secretarial services as a common grant from which the board of management can allocate according to its own priorities except for the employment of relevant secretaries as per Circular 0036/2022. Primary schools with fewer than 60 pupils are paid the capitation rate and the ancillary grants on the basis of having 60 pupils. Enhanced rates are also paid in respect of pupils with special educational needs and Traveller pupils. To ensure that schools are supported to get the best value for money for their spending, the Office of Government Procurement, OGP, frameworks are available to schools for a number of categories including facilities management, managed services, professional services and utilities. Schools are encouraged to avail of the available OGP procurement frameworks. The financial support services unit, FSSU, funded by the Department is an important source of advice and support to schools on financial matters. The Senator mentioned Sixmilebridge and others. It is important that if there are challenges within school communities that they reach out to the unit as a matter of urgency. We are committed to continuing to increase capitation as we have done over the past number of years.

I thank the Minister of State. I have no doubt Sixmilebridge along with many other schools engage with the financial support services unit of the Department. The global point is the increase in capitation is an urgent priority, which is reflected in the Minister of State's answer. Unfortunately, they are going to have to wait until September 2026 to see that from the budget. Perhaps there is a case to introduce an emergency top-up in capitation grants for this year, if possible, but the Department is already running a deficit. The Department needs to examine whether the capitation system and structure we have at the moment are fit for purpose. There are certain standards costs every school has whether it has 60 or 600 pupils such as electricity, maintenance and cleaning. There might be a big school but it only has a small number of pupils. It is just physically big because of the structure.

The Department needs to do a body of work in reviewing the capitation system and seeing if it can be more effective than what is in place at the moment.

The capitation funding is hugely important for school communities. We have, over the past number of years, increased it quite substantially, almost by 50% in some instances at primary and post-primary. We will continue to review that. The grant for the next school year will be paid in the next month and we are getting the funding out to the school communities as early as we can. As all education matters are being reviewed in the context of the budget in October 2026 for 2027, they will get consideration as well but in this year alone, we have a sizeable increase in the capitation both at primary and post-primary. We will be continuing to review that because the Minister, Deputy Naughton and I, from our engagement with the school communities and management bodies, know the challenges that are out there. As the Senator alluded to, we do not have an endless pot of money so we are trying to make sure we address the many challenges we have right across the Department of education and meet the need we have within our education system. We are continuing to do it but we take the point the Senator has raised. I will certainly be reflecting on that with my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Naughton, over the next number of months. I again thank the Senator for raising the issue and for his ongoing engagement on education matters.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit.