The Minister for Finance seems prepared to exempt education spending from the more austere approach being adopted elsewhere.

Along with health, education was the biggest beneficiary in the Estimates for 2002. The Government is sticking to the belief that even in gloomy economic times, education spending is a worthwhile investment.

While most of those within the sector know that philosophically the case for greater education spending has been won, the exact allocations are hard fought over each year.

This year the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, has won some praise for ensuring education spending was not downgraded because of the economic downturn. But he is under pressure to deliver nevertheless.

The constant refrain from those within education is that the sector suffered appallingly during the 1980s and early 1990s and now is the time to play catch-up.

The catching-up is most urgently required, they argue, at the foundations of the education system - the schools. Many were built at the start of the last century and need urgent repair. In other cases buildings will have to be levelled and new schools built.

The state of many national schools is truly shocking and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO), in a direct appeal to Dr Woods, last week printed a list of 73 sub-standard primary schools which it said urgently needed to be upgraded.

The survey has found almost half these schools have rotting windows or doors while about 40 per cent have inadequate heating systems. Many have few pupils and teachers, but in many rural constituencies this issue of sub-standard schools is starting to hurt the Government.

The Department of Education, however, received no additional money in the Estimates to tackle the problem. Spending on "building equipment and furnishing of national schools" was almost unchanged at £92 million (€117 million). The situation at second level was similar.

This has prompted a furore among the teacher unions and disappointment among school managers. They hope the Budget will spell out in more detail what all this means. There are 850 school projects - at primary and second level - at various stages with the Department's buildings unit. How many of these will be affected by the failure to get extra money is not clear. Among schools there is also lots of competition, particularly between the different sectors. Voluntary secondary schools - those owned by the churches mainly - have complained for years about getting less funds compared to their rivals in the State sector such as community and comprehensive schools.

They are hoping for a new system of funding announced in the Budget which will favour them. It is not clear whether it will be there or not, although the fund it should come from - capitation for secondary schools - was up 32 per cent in the Estimates.

This is a sensitive issue for the Minister, because he and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, have been intensively lobbied by church leaders and the Joint Managerial Body, which represents school managers.

The other big issue likely to get attention on December 5th is special needs. Dr Woods, despite increasing the outlay on facilities for children with autism, has been severely criticised by people such as Ms Kathryn Sinnott, on behalf of her son Jamie. She says the Minister has not done enough, but Dr Woods has won a few concessions from the paymasters in the Department of Finance. For example, there was money in the Estimates to increase by 70 per cent the number of special needs assistants. They work with special needs children in mainstream and specialist classrooms and are badly needed, argue campaigners.

But the campaigners for children with special needs will want more details on spending in this area in the Budget.

One item not listed among the Estimates was additional teachers' pay. While the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) increases were provided for, nothing has been set aside yet for what may arise as a result of the benchmarking process.

But more notable was the absence in the Department of Education Estimates of a figure for supervision/substitution work, a contentious issue for all three teacher unions.

Teachers do this work for free but the Department has offered to pay them £27 per hour from next year. The work involves supervising in corridors and at lunchtime and covering for absent colleagues. The deal allows teachers to opt in or out of the work, but so far only INTO members have backed it.

The Department has made no provision for the £27 offer, leading many teachers to conclude - rightly or wrongly - that a better offer can be extracted from the Government.

The Department of Finance is heavily involved in the negotiations on the issue and teachers will want to see if there is any mention of it in the Budget.

Meanwhile the consumers - the students - want concessions too. The Union of Students in Ireland has called on Mr McCreevy to reduce the age for independent assessment for entitlement to a medical card from 23 to 18 years.

The automatic entitlement of third-level students to a medical card was revoked due to healthcare spending cutbacks in 1983. Since then access by third-level students to primary healthcare services has been done through regular general practice.

The students also want their maintenance grants increased because they claim they have not kept pace with rental demands.