Ten of the State's most exclusive fee-paying secondary schools benefited from more than £1 million each in State funding in the last tax year.
Figures obtained by The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act show that more than £38 million was paid by the State to fund the salaries of teachers at 58 schools which charge their day students fees. An additional £1.2 million in non-salary grants was paid to the schools, all of which charge substantial fees. The schools received an average of £677,741.60.
Kilkenny College received the largest amount, £1,713,852.80. This included teachers' salaries, a £560,000 grant for a rebuilding project and £46,772 in other grants.
Blackrock College, which charges each day student £2,300,
received the second greatest amount. It got almost £1.5 million in teachers' salaries and £16,373 for secretarial facilities, according to the Department of Education.
Six other Dublin fee-charging schools received more than £1 million. They were Terenure College; the High School, Rathgar; Belvedere College; Wesley College; St Andrew's College, Blackrock, and the King's Hospital, Palmerstown.
Two fee-charging schools in Cork received more than £1 million - the Christian Brothers' College in Sidney Hill and the Presentation College in Mardyke.
Rockwell College in Co Tipperary, where day students pay more than £1,000 a year, was not included in the list. The Department said the school had certified that 309 of its 430 students were not compelled to pay fees.
Commenting on the other figures, a spokesman for the Minister for Education said Mr Martin wished all fee-paying schools to enter the free education system. He said the Minister had personally encouraged one fee-paying school which sought extra funding to enter the free education scheme.
The spokesman said fee-paying schools had not benefited from "the considerable improvements to State funding for non-fee-paying schools during the last year" and had scarcely benefited from the IT2000 programme.
Most fee-paying schools do not receive the £190 capitation grant per student given to secondary schools in the free scheme. If capitation were paid for all of Blackrock College's 950 students, it would total £180,000.
Four of the schools which received more than £1 million are managed by Protestant denominations. Protestant schools are entitled to more funding than other fee-charging schools because of the small number of such schools and the dispersed nature of the Protestant community.
A spokesman for the Department said the arrangements for Protestant schools were designed to allow children of minority communities "to attend schools of of their own denomination should they choose to do so".
