Why the cut to the ICT grant is even worse than you think
Schools are facing another year of underfunding and the ICT grant is the lowest it's ever been but who is shouting about it?
If you were to ask school leaders what was the biggest challenge they were facing this year, in most cases it would be funding. In fact one school threatened to close its doors because it could no longer afford to pay the bills.
A School may have to Close due to Lack of Funding. How has it come to this?
The Sacred Heart Junior National School in Killinarden, Tallaght wrote to families to let them know that due to a serious lack of funding, they would be forced to operate remotely from April 1st. This was because of “massive under funding for many years due to cuts from the Department o…
As the year was progressing, there was no sign of the ICT grant or the Minor Works grant. The Minor Works grant was usually paid in December and the ICT grant in April. When it finally arrived in May, there was initial relief.
https://x.com/simonmlewis/status/1928072531593789740
However, on closer inspection, it was clear that the ICT grant had been cut significantly. For example, a 100-pupil school in 2024 received €5,973 but in 2025 it was down to €4,533, a significant cut!
The Department of Education didn’t even try to defend it.
There was no ICT grant in 2023 and the 2022 grant appeared to be paid in 2021, even though the Department hadn’t made that clear. In fact, they said the second grant in 2021 was to buy devices for children in need during COVID. If I recall correctly, it wasn’t even enough to buy ten devices.
This is a graph of the grant since it started in 2016.
However, the above doesn’t even tell the full story. Even though the government, if they were bothered, could have said it was an above-average level of funding, if we take inflation into account, what we can see, very clearly, that 2025 is the lowest ICT grant in history.
The silence from most stakeholders was predictable yet disappointing. It was good to hear Seamus Mulconry from the CPSMA on RTE News for a couple of minutes highlighting the issue but it was to no avail. Nobody followed up on it and, as usual, the government got away with more penny-pinching.
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22518166/
The impact of this, naturally, is that schools won’t be able to fund much of their basic ICT budget. More importantly, they still can’t plan their ICT budget because, as you can see from the graph, it is impossible to predict how much money they are going to get, if any, or when.
The education partners (as they call themselves) need to start backing each other up. It was dreadful that neither the INTO not the IPPN has anything to say on the matter. Judging from their social media, there seems to be a lot of focus on nostalgia of the good old days instead of focusing on the now.
The pattern of stealth cuts and budgetary chaos will continue as long as it is met with a fractured and muted response. The real crisis highlighted by this graph isn't just the dwindling funds; it's the lack of a unified, vocal front from the very organisations meant to champion our schools. Until the education 'partners' decide to back each other up and fight for the 'now', individual schools will be left to face the future not with a plan, but with a lottery ticket, hoping for the best.
Thanks for this Simon. With everything that is going on in schools I hadn't had the time to properly look at this. I expect such decisions from Government. However, the silence from those that claim to represent schools is inexcusable. Schools deserve much better.