Almost half of year course allocation spent

Almost half (49 per cent) of the 2025 allocation provided to Cavan-Monaghan ETB has been spent in the first six months of this year, a situation that those minding the purse-strings within the organisation continue to “monitor carefully”.

The update was provided by Head Of Finance, Amanda Taylor, to ETB board members when they met in Kingscourt recently.

Ms Taylor expressly stated in her January to June summary that the educational body are on track to “stay within budget” for the present year.

She said the organisation had received from the department a grant of €1.8M for school books; a further €218,000 for IT upgrades; and €188,000 to provide Dheis support for six schools under its patronage.

They had also received €3M to meet capital commitments for current building projects, with a further €400,000 for youth services.

All courses were operating within funding targets, and the plan was to meet with management at Monaghan's Garage Theatre and the Tanagh Outdoor Education and Training Centre near Cootehill to discuss projections for the coming year.

Revenue she said was up €1.2M on the same period last year.

Chair of the ETB, Fine Gael's Carmel Brady, commended the ETB executive for the “huge amounts” of money being spent on education across the two counties. “It's great to see.”