Budget 2025: Education & family

As part of Budget 2025, funding for 768 additional special education teachers and 1,600 more special needs assistants has been allocated.

There’s also been a capital allocation of €1.3 billion for education which will support 350 building projects currently underway, as well as 200 new school projects.

There will also be increased funding for the School Transport Scheme and the Free Schoolbooks initiative will be extended to all transition and senior cycle pupils in post-primary schools within the free education scheme.

However the ASTI said the Budget contains little information on how the Government intends to address the most serious issues facing schools.

ASTI President Donal Cremin said the “announcement is quiet on the big issues in education. This is surprising given recent widespread media coverage of the under-investment in schools and the extent of the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.”

Budget 2025 will also introduce a €1.4bn package over a six-year period up to 2030 to better fund research, further and higher education, skills and development and decarbonisation, according to Minister Donohue.

There will also be a once-off reduction of 33% in contribution fee for apprentices in higher education and a post-graduate tuition fee contribution increase of €1,000 for student grant recipients.

Children and carers

Children and particularly babies were a big focus of the Government in Budget 2025 and featured in several big giveaways. These included double payments of child benefit in both November and December and a new one-off 'baby boost' payment of €420 for each newborn child from 1 January.

There will also be a double payment of the foster care allowance and €400 lump sum payment for working family payment recipients.

Recipients of qualified child increase payments will benefit to the tune of a €100 lump sum payment per child. National childcare scheme funding is to rise by 44%, resulting in reduction of fulltime childcare costs by €1,100.

The free public transport to be extended to children aged five to eight.

Carers were also a focus of Budget 2025 and the domiciliary care allowance is to increase by €20 and carer's support grant to rise by €150 to €2,000. The carer's allowance means test disregard is to increase to €625 for a single person and €1,250 for a couple.

Social Justice Ireland said in a statement that while 1 in 7 children (more than 176,000) are living in poverty in Ireland, Budget 2025 “did not contain the measures that would tackle child poverty: putting more income into poorer families’ pockets and making the public services they rely on more available and more affordable. Combatting child poverty requires more than double payments and one-off credits,” they said.