To ask the Minister of Education for his assessment of the impact on staffing levels in schools as a result of budgetary constraints within his Department.

Approximately 77% of the Education budget is made up of staff costs. Therefore, in order for the Department to manage within the impending budget constraints, there will need to be a significant reduction in the number of posts across the Education sector. My initial estimate is that at least 1,000 teaching and at least 1,500 non-teaching jobs will need to exit the system at 1 April 2015. This number will, inevitably, increase should the timing of the redundancies extend further into the 2015/16 financial year.