Thirty-two schools inflate number of pupils to get grants

More than 30 schools have falsified their pupil numbers to get €1 million-worth of extra teachers and grants, it has emerged.

The 32 schools detected had overclaimed for 582 pupils, an average of 18 each. Around €1.3 million was incorrectly claimed, of which €237,000 has been recovered.

There have been a series of court cases in recent years with school principals brought to court for inflating pupil numbers in their annual school enrolment ...