The Department of Education and Science needs an extra €51 million this year to pay for considerably increased numbers of teachers who have applied to retire, the Minister for Education, Ms Hanafin, told a Dáil committee yesterday.
In a presentation to the select committee for education and science on the 2004 supplementary estimate for her Department, Ms Hanafin also indicated that the cost of adding 13 institutions to the residential institutions redress scheme would be between €700,000 and €800,000.
This was based on her Department's estimation that approximately 100 new cases would emerge from these institutions, with an average award of some €77,000, she said.
Responding to suggestions from several members of the committee that the rise in the number of teachers retiring was due to large class sizes and an increase in the levels of stress faced by teachers, Ms Hanafin said she believed one of the main reasons for the increase was the recent benchmarking payments to teachers.
Many teachers were able to retire on a bigger final salary following benchmarking, she said, while the fact they were only required to provide three months' notice once they had reached the appropriate age made it difficult to estimate retirement patterns accurately.
Some €29.1 million will be required to meet around 700 retirements at primary level, while approximately €22 million will be needed to do so at second level. But Ms Hanafin claimed the numbers of teachers leaving the system this year would have "absolutely no effect" on class sizes, although she acknowledged the need for the numbers of unqualified teachers to be addressed.
The Government was making progress on reducing class sizes, with less than 200 pupils in classes of more than 40; 96,000 pupils were in classes of between 30 and 34, while only 5,000 were in classes of between 35 and 40. However, a spokeswoman for Ms Hanafin later clarified that this last figure was around 10,000.
On the redress scheme, Ms Hanafin said an additional €33.4 million was required to meet the cost of claims to be processed during 2004. This was because the board's work was proceeding faster than anticipated.
The review of the proposed "weighted" system for allocation of special needs resources would be conducted in time for introduction in the next academic year, Ms Hanafin added.
She said an underspend of some €50 million by her Department last year was due in part to the slow pace of some projects in getting to tender. Her Department would not be sending any of this money back to the Department of Finance. The total supplementary amount required this year was €70 million, she added, which includes €5 million for special needs assistants and €532,000 for local drug task force projects.