The pressure on the Government on the class size issue is set to intensify after Labour tabled a Dáil motion on the issue yesterday.
But the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, defended her record last night, saying she was making no apologies "for giving priority to special needs and newcomer children".
The motion in the name of the Labour Party spokeswoman on education, Jan O'Sullivan TD, calls for the setting of a timetable for meeting the commitment given in the Programme for Government.
This promised to reduce the average class size for children under nine to below 20 - as part of an overall drive to reduce class size.
Ms O'Sullivan said: "The decision of the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, to renege on this commitment was one of the most shameful decisions made by this Government. Indeed in some respects the situation has actually worsened in recent years. For instance, figures I obtained last year showed that the number of primary school children in classes of 30 or more had increased by more than 5,000 in just two years."
In recent weeks, the Government has been unsettled by the huge crowds attending the INTO regional meetings on the issue.
Ms O'Sullivan said the " huge numbers turning out for the meetings organised by the INTO is a reflection of the deep concern felt by parents and teachers alike at the failure to make sufficient progress on this subject."
Under pressure from the INTO on the issue, Ms Hanafin yesterday issued new figures that showed, she said, a "massive increase of 5,000 in the number of primary teachers in just five years ... We have matched the teaching resources to the greatest need and make no apology for doing so. No one could have anticipated the new priorities that emerged in the past five years - the increase in newcomer children arriving in schools, the extra supports needed to provide a resource or learning-support teacher in every primary school to help children with special needs or the drive to remove economic disadvantage as a barrier to education and attainment."
The new figures show the number of primary school teachers has increased by over a third in the past decade alone, with some counties, such as Meath and Kildare, showing increases in teacher numbers of two-thirds in that period.
Ms Hanafin said the Government had taken action "last September to reduce class size and we are doing so again this September. An extra 800 primary school teachers are already sanctioned for this coming September. These are being targeted at class size, special needs and disadvantage as well as demographic increases."
The Minister said that while she accepts the need to reduce primary class sizes further, it should be acknowledged how much has been achieved. "The average class size has been reduced from 27 to 24. With all the extra support teachers now in place, there is one teacher for every 17 primary schoolchildren - down from one for 22."
