Election 2007 in County Wicklow

It looks like you might be a first time visitor here so you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting and please exercise your vote on polling day

CSO report shows Ireland has highest average class size in EU after Britain

“The last ten years of FF/PD Government have been characterised by severe overcrowding in our schools, with some children being educated in classes of 40 or more,” says Wicklow/East Carlow Fine Gael TD, Billy Timmins.

“According to INTO surveys published some weeks ago, national schools in Co Wicklow are near the top of the overcrowding league tables.

“Despite Government promises to bring class sizes down, 110,000 children are still in classes of at least 30, with Ireland having the highest average class size in the EU after Britain.

“The Government is quick to shrug off criticism about this, saying that our economic success and population growth were hard to predict and plan for. However, the latest Central Statistics Office (CSO) report shows that, during the lifetime of the last two Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrat Governments, the total number of children at primary level has decreased. In 1996/’97, close to 470,000 children were in primary schools, as compared with 458,000 a decade later.

“Demographic change has been a significant factor over the past ten years, with fast-growing new communities developing in cities and commuter belts. FF and the PDs have shown themselves to be completely unable to respond to this changing population profile, leaving these communities in our cities and commuter belt areas with a totally inadequate number of school places.

“Over the coming years, the Department of Education and Science projects a big increase in the number of children at primary school – close to 60,000. How does this Government expect anyone to believe that they will plan properly for this massive increase when their decade-long record of failure is clear for all to see?

“With the number of children at primary school looking set to increase really substantially, this Government cannot be trusted to plan for their future.”