One school's story: The education Estimates received a cautious welcome from Mr Garret Edge, principal of St Killan's Senior National School, in Kingswood, Tallaght, who said it followed a trend of improved funding for primary education in recent years. John Downes reports.
However, he warned that despite the announcement of increased resources for special needs assistants, between 15 and 20 children in his 330-pupil school alone were in need of special needs resources.
As a result, he felt it was time to "get real" about the provision of resources to children with special educational needs in ordinary schools.
"We are located in a relatively comfortable area, but we do have a proportion of children coming to school without books or dinners," he said.
"Disadvantaged schools deserve everything they get and more . . . But ordinary schools like ours feel we are being discriminated against."
While the increase of 6 per cent in capitation grants for primary schools was welcome, in reality it did not amount to a whole lot, he said.
"It's welcome, but it's very little. I'd like to see a realistic increase, at least to the same level as post-primary," he said.
"Schools are by-and-large scrimping and saving and selling buns (to get by). I would like to see schools really well funded."
Students at his school still had no sports hall to conduct their physical education classes, he pointed out, and could only use the yard for these classes when the weather was good.
But while he acknowledged that yesterday's figures did not refer to capital spending allocations, he said his school was also in need of a security wall and fence to address ongoing vandalism problems. "It's about a secure, safe and appropriate learning environment for everybody," he said. "I have attended at least four fund-raisers organised through the parents' association in 2004 alone.They supply significant funding to our school."