Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan has said she will “continue to fight” for more resources for education in any pre-budget discussions.

Speaking at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick Ms O’Sullivan listed student teacher ratios and reducing the number of prefabs in schools as among the priorities on her budget wish list.

“I will continue to fight for as much as I can get for education... We have to deal with the normal needs of the expanding population, so that involves more teachers, more special needs assistants, more classrooms and they will all be the immediate priorities but on top of that I want to see where we can start putting some resources back into the education system,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan said she has met with all the relevant partners in education and asked them to highlight the areas that need restoration following recent cuts.

“For me pupil teacher ratio would be one area that as soon as we have funding I would like to see us addressing... I was able to do something for some of the smaller schools..

“In the capital area we always have challenges because we have growing numbers and we have to ensure we have classrooms for all of the students so that will continue to be a priority for me.

“But the other one is the whole area of prefabs and to reduce the number of prefabs we have and to get to a point where you will only have prefabs for a very short period of time in any school. You won’t have children spending years in prefabs so I will be continuing to work on that as well.”

Ms O’Sullivan said she will draw up the next five year capital plan for education shortly, in which she will focus on reducing the number of prefabs in schools.

The Minister also said she would be reviewing the DEIS programme, which is for disadvantaged schools in disadvantaged areas.

“I will be ensuring that funding is protected in that area and if there are improvements to be made in those schemes that we would do that.”

On the proposed reform of the Junior Cert Ms O’Sullivan said she was confident of a positive result when the teaching unions go to ballot in September based on the fact the National Executive has agreed with the proposals.

She made her comments at the launch of the expansion of the RDS Primary Science Fair to Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

Primary schools now have twice the opportunity to enter the RDS Primary Science Fair with schools able to choose between the RDS Primary Science Fair in Dublin or Limerick.