Teaching Matters:Last week's budget was nothing short of a bombshell for primary schools. Since the start of this school year, teachers and parents have been expecting the delivery of smaller classes and additional funding for the running costs of schools. From a long list of promises made in the Programme for Government, these were the top two issues on which progress was expected.

Despite the worsening public finances the smart money was on some progress being made to tackle over-crowded classes. The last government had promised to reduce the number of children in classes but failed to deliver. In the face of a sustained publicity campaign to highlight the size of classes in primary schools, the current Government made further promises in the run up to the election.

In March, at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, the Taoiseach promised to hire 4,000 more teachers. Last June, the Programme for Government contained very specific promises to reduce class sizes in each of the next three years.

Surely they wouldn't have the neck to fail to deliver a second time?

But last week, that's exactly what happened. The ink is hardly dry on the Programme for Government before the promises are being broken.

While Minister Mary Hanafin will obviously have to handle the political fall-out from this it is clear that the villain is the Department of Finance. The October estimates made it clear that €9.1 billion would be needed to run the education sector for the next year without providing for any improvement. Last week, Brian Cowen provided €9.3 billion - an increase of two per cent, for everything additional. That's €200 million extra for the whole education sector from primary to university.

But almost half of that is to be ring-fenced for new primary schools to prevent another Balbriggan and all the flak that flew over that debacle. That means Marlborough St really only has €100 million to play with.

So all the talk of an eight per cent increase in the education budget should be treated with a pinch of salt. The increase to implement the promises in the Programme for Government is just above one per cent.

And that's the real problem - too many promises, too little money.

Minister Hanafin is clearly trying to put a brave face on it with talk of appointing extra teachers. But lest the brave face be allowed to create the wrong impression, it is important to state clearly that there are no extra teachers to bring down class sizes. Any new teachers appointed will be used for the ever increasing number of pupils in primary schools.

Yes there will be more teachers, but there will also be thousands of extra pupils. Next year, classes will be as overcrowded as ever. We will retain our place near the top of the large class league table.

The same argument is true when it comes to day-to-day funding for schools. Last week Mary Hanafin announced a funding increase of €15 per child per year. Primary school mathematics shows clearly that this will do nothing to help schools pay their bills.

Despite the fact that most schools are currently either in debt or subsidised by parents, a 100-pupil school will get an annual increase of only €1500 from this budget. Not only is this not enough to meet current running costs, it is nowhere near enough to meet the new charges faced by schools.

For exactly at the same time as the Department of Education and Science is handing out additional money for running costs local councils are now set to take more than three times that amount back in water and waste charges. Schools all over the country are facing new charges for these services, many in the region of between €5,000 and €10,000.

This is not only the budgetary equivalent of the three-card trick it is also a mind-boggling waste of time and resources. One arm of the State gives money to schools only for another arm of the same State to demand it back again.

It is time to grasp this nettle and have waste and water charges waived for schools. Otherwise we really do face the scenario of the water supply to a school being cut off, not for refusal to pay but for inability to pay.

It is an obscenity that already under-funded schools are being hit with ever increasing demands by local authorities for waste collection charges. Water metres are being installed in school buildings throughout the State, not for any environmental reason but simply to levy additional charges.

Every euro taken out of a school account to meet these charges deprives a young child of a book, a classroom of a poster, a school of a vital learning resource.

It is also time that the reality of primary-school funding was exposed once and for all for the sham that it is. "Free" education is not being provided by this Government. It depends on voluntary subscriptions, charity walks, race nights, golf classics, social evenings for parents, raffles, cake sales, sales of work, and school plays or shows.

All over the country new boards of management are being set up. Many of them are looking for people to take on the job of treasurer. Maybe the Minister for Finance Brian Cowen should volunteer in his local primary school so that he could see first hand the effects of his Budget that has failed primary education.