Capitation Grants
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-13
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Martin Conway (IND), Administrative Panel

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.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-13