Fee-charging secondary schools have defended the fact that many of their teachers' salaries are paid by the State.
Sister Elizabeth Cotter, the principal of Loreto College in St Stephen's Green in Dublin, which charges its students £950 a year, says the fees income is used to offer a wider range of subjects and to reduce class sizes.
The State pays all but £400 of the annual salary of each of 31 teachers at the school. The school pays another 14 teachers from its income.
Sister Elizabeth says State funding of the salary of the majority of the school's teachers is justifiable. "The State determines the curriculum that is taught, so they have a huge influence on what we do. We're bound by their rules, regulations and circulars.
"I've no problem with the fact that the State doesn't pay us some of the grants that are paid to schools who don't charge fees. The parents of our pupils come from better-off families, so we meet some of those needs out of our fee income.
"However, not all of our children come from the wealthier section of the middle class. In many cases both parents choose to work so they can send their daughter to a good school.
"A huge amount of our fee income goes on the salaries of extra teachers and the running costs of the school are also horrendous. Sports is a big expenditure too. Because we're in the city centre we have to hire facilities."
Wesley College, a school under Methodist management which charges its day students about £1,800 a year, says it has 48 teachers paid for by the State and "a substantial number of other teachers" paid for out of its own funds.
A spokesman for the college said the fees income was used "to reduce class sizes and give our students the greatest possible number of subjects to choose from".
A spokesman for Blackrock College, which benefited from almost £1.5 million funding last year, said the Exchequer saved more than £450,000 in grants that it would have to pay were its students attending a school in the free-education scheme. He said "a number of extra teachers" were paid for out of the fees.
