SET ALLOCATIONS PROJECT

The absolute state of special education.

The SET Allocation Project takes a close examination of the figures relating to the SET Allocations and offers some thoughts based on all of the data available as evidence. This year I take a look at: 

  • Which counties have the highest allocations?
  • How older schools are protected from cuts
  • When the algorithm changed in 2024/25, how did it affect allocations?
  • What happens when a school’s enrollment rapidly increases and decreases?
  • Check your school’s data

 

Please note that all of the data is based on the spreadsheets published by the Department of Education and NCSE and may be inaccurate for some schools.

2026/27 Edition

Based on published Department of Education school statistics and NCSE allocation data.

HEADLINE FIGURES

DEIS Difference

In 2026/27, DEIS schools had 40.6% more SET hours on average than non-DEIS schools, down from 41.6% higher in the previous two years

Limerick on Top

On average Limerick has the highest SET hours per 100 pupils at 55.24 followed by Galway, Offaly, Kerry and Roscommon.

Kilkenny Bottom

On average Kilkenny has 42.5% fewer SET hours per 100 pupils than Limerick with only 38.78 hours per 100 pupils followed by Meath, Kildare and Cavan.

Small does Better

Schools with fewer than 50 pupils receive 1.7 times as many SET hours per pupil as schools with 500+. pupils manage to get.

WHICH COUNTIES HAVE THE HIGHEST ALLOCATIONS?

What does this map show?

Counties contain very different types of schools. Small schools generally receive more SET hours per pupil than large schools, while DEIS schools and schools with special classes also tend to receive higher allocations. A simple county league table would therefore be misleading.

To make the comparison fairer, I grouped schools according to size, DEIS status and whether they had special classes. Each county’s actual allocation was then compared with the national average for its particular mix of schools.

An index of 100 means that a county received roughly what we would expect. A score of 110 means 10% more than expected, while 90 means 10% less.

The adjustment explains some apparent differences. Offaly was third in the raw league table, but its adjusted index is 99.9, almost exactly the national expectation. Dublin is similarly close at 100.6.

Other differences remain striking. Limerick has an index of 118, meaning it receives approximately 18% more SET hours than expected. Galway receives 14.1% more. At the other end, Cavan receives 17.4% less than expected, while Leitrim receives 15.9% less and Kilkenny 14.1% less.

This does not prove that counties have been treated unfairly. Literacy, numeracy and test-exemption data account for most of the official allocation model, and these school-level figures are not published. They may explain some of the remaining differences.

That is the central problem. Even after accounting for the school information we do have, large geographical differences remain. The public can see which counties receive more and which receive less, but the data needed to explain why is missing.

YOUR SCHOOL’S PAST MAY MATTER MORE THAN ITS PRESENT

Schools growing by more than 25% increased in size by an average of 59.8%, but their SET allocations increased by only 38.4%. Schools shrinking by more than 25% lost 35.4% of their pupils, but only 7.4% of their SET allocation.

BIG CHANGES TO ALGORITHM. TINY CHANGES TO ALLOCATIONS.

I looked at 1,984 schools whose enrolment changed by more than 10% between 2017 and 2025/26. The clearest test came in 2024/25, when gender and the previous complex-needs component were removed from the allocation formula. Despite both the schools and the formula changing, 79.8% of growing schools and 87.9% of shrinking schools received an adjustment of less than ten weekly SET hours. This was not a responsive system. It was the 2017 baseline being preserved, with small changes made around its edges. The figures look data-driven, but the original allocation appears to matter more than the school as it exists today. That is why I describe the data as junk.

EXTREME CHANGES. EXTREME CONTRADICTIONS.

This graph looks at schools that had at least 50 pupils in 2017 and whose enrolment subsequently changed by at least 25%. This removes most of the misleading percentage changes produced by very small schools. Of the 632 schools that met these conditions, the graph shows the 118 where SET hours remained unchanged or moved in the opposite direction to enrolment.

Each dot represents one school. Schools on the right grew by at least 25% but received no additional SET hours. Schools on the left lost at least 25% of their pupils but retained or increased their allocation. The higher a dot appears, the more its SET allocation increased. The lower it appears, the more it decreased.

The imbalance is striking. Of the 290 growing schools, 17 received no increase in SET hours. Of the 342 shrinking schools, 101 retained or increased their allocation. In other words, this happened to about 6% of growing schools but almost 30% of shrinking schools.

Some individual cases are particularly difficult to explain. Meenkilly National School grew from 54 to 101 pupils, an increase of 87%, while its allocation remained virtually unchanged at about 25 hours. Monaseed National School fell from 105 to 55 pupils, a decrease of almost 48%, while its allocation increased from 26.8 to 40 hours.

Enrolment is only one part of the allocation formula, so an unusual result does not automatically mean that an individual school received the wrong allocation. However, changes this large show how disconnected SET allocations can become from the number of children actually attending a school. The Department’s published figures show what happened, but do not provide enough information to explain why.

SEARCH FOR YOUR SCHOOL'S ALLOCATIONS

Use the search bar to find anything! Type in your roll number, your county or even the hours you received in order to compare the numbers. Please note that calculations may be slightly wrong but all data is taken from the Department of Education statistics and NCSE SET Allocations.

Roll number School County SET hours 2017 SET hours 2019 SET hours 2021 SET hours 2022 SET hours 2024/25 SET hours 2025/26 SET hours 2026/27 SET change 2025/26 to 2026/27 (hours)