A complete listing of school grant schemes is "not maintained or readily available" from the Department of an Education and Youth, an examination by the State's spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG), has found.
The main source of income for schools is grants, amounting to about €5.5 billion paid by the department between 2015 and 2024.
An estimated 91% of this expenditure was provided on a per capita basis, using enrolment data provided by schools.
The report also finds that the Department's reliance on enrolment data to calculate grant funding, highlights the "critical need for robust controls."
The standard capitation rate per primary school student was €200, and the standard rate per student for the books grant was €80 for primary schools and €309 for the junior cycle.
In total capitation grants accounted for €251m for the day-to-day school running costs such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general upkeep.
Book grants accounted for €115m, and the school services support fund was €64m, to assist schools meet the costs associated with support services such as secretarial and caretaking.
School records
Principals/boards of management must complete a declaration in relation to the accuracy of the school's enrolment return.
A PPSN (personal public service number) allows each student to be uniquely identified.
The number of primary school pupil records without a PPSN or without a validated PPSN was "very small in the 2024/25 academic year."
However, the number of post-primary student records without a PPSN or without a validated PPSN has "risen significantly" to approximately 14,000 in the 2024/25 academic year.
The Department stated that, as of "July 2025, approximately 10,000 students at Post Primary level do not have a recorded PPSN and approximately 4,000 students have PPSNs that are not validated".
Based on the figures provided by the Department, this "represents over 3% of the 2024/2025 student enrolments" (425,411).
This is a "notable increase in missing data" from fewer than 900 students in 2016 and the Department stated that the figures will "reduce over time" as records are verified.
The Department's two enrolment recording systems - the Primary Online Database (POD) and the Post-Primary Online Database (PPOD) - are populated with student data by schools.
Both systems use a cross-government application for public bodies to verify data, including to validate PPSNs against records held by the Department of Social Protection and the Health Service Executive.
However, the PPSN is not a mandatory field in either system, nor are the systems integrated.
The report recommends that integration would "enhance the Department's control framework relating to grant payments."
Enrollment irregularities
Since 2010, the Department investigated 15 confirmed cases of enrolment fraud, with five further cases currently under review.
The Department has reported 12 of the cases to An Garda Síochána.
The Department stated that it is the responsibility of school boards to "notify irregularities to An Garda Síochána in the first instance", and the report provides the outcome of investigations in relation to 15 confirmed cases involving enrolment irregularity since 2010.
The cases identified were "not detected through the Department’s internal controls" and the report finds that this "reliance" on external sources to identify overpayments "suggests a gap in operating controls and preventative oversight."
The Department estimates that almost €1.4m was overpaid relating to the confirmed cases.
The report found that of the 15 cases, four were prosecuted, a decision to prosecute was taken in one case, three cases were being investigated by the Department only and there was no prosecution in five other cases.
There is an ongoing garda investigation in two cases.
The cases were "identified through protected disclosures or by information provided to the Department", rather than being identified by Department controls.
The report found that there does "not appear to be an existing control" through current systems that would have prevented these cases.
One of the case studies provided in the report details how in 2020, the Department received a protected disclosure concerning irregularities related to enrolment returns for a primary school.
The case was referred to An Garda Síochána in 2022 which found that Enrolment returns were overstated by four children.
These additional four children qualified the school to "retain an additional teaching resource", the report states.
Valid PPSNs were used "for children from a local childcare facility, a child who was enrolled up to 3rd class but then did not return and a child who transferred to another school."
For the latter, the two schools agreed that the child transferring would not be registered with the new school to avoid duplicate PPSNs being detected.
The new school had nothing to gain with the additional student whereas the school the child left would lose a teaching post it reports.
The Department stated that An Garda Síochána informed them in June 2025 that the case was proceeding to a prosecution.
The Department has calculated an overpayment of €32,618.
A recoupment arrangement is in place with the school, and, by year-end 2024, a total of €19,800 has been repaid.
Planning and building
The C&AG report finds that the Department has stated that while its Planning and Building Unit monitor demand for school places each September in terms of capacity planning (which uses demographic projections), this sort of analysis is "very limited at predicting school-level enrolments" due to "free parental choice" in where they enrol their children.
The Accounting Officer for the department agrees in the report that a project is being progressed by the Department and is in the early stages of development.
The Department also states that it is exploring options for the development and maintenance of a central register of grant schemes.
The report also states that oversight by the Department is "fragmented" and that it is "putting in place a working group" to review how to achieve this recommendation.
