As children across the country enter into their second week of the back-to-school grind wearing their shiny new uniforms and pencil cases in hand, the headlines this morning carried the news that the average class size in primary schools have fallen to their lowest in over a quarter of a century.
New figures published by the Department of Education show that there are close to 18,000 fewer pupils in first-level education in the 2024/25 school year. The downward trend in enrolments in primary schools means that the average class size dropped to 22.2 pupils per class – down from 22.5 in 2023/24.
The first – perhaps the default – response, is likely that this is a good thing. There were almost 8,000 fewer pupils in primary schools being taught in overcrowded classes last year than just 12 months earlier. Just 8.2% of primary school children were in a class of 30 or more last year, compared to 9.5% the year prior. And the current average class size of 22.2 is the lowest in almost 30 years. The figure peaked in 1988 when there were an average of 25.6 pupils per class.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education told the Irish Independent that the Government remains committed to reducing class sizes further, saying it was considering how best to achieve this “in the context of the challenges around the annual budgetary process.” Three consecutive budgets, it said, had collectively improved the staff schedule by one point each year, resulting in a general average of one class teacher for every 23 pupils.
“Primary schools are now staffed at the most favourable level ever seen. If a school has a large class, it generally also has a small class,” the spokesperson said.
We can rush to give the Government credit, but surely one enormous factor at play in the sweeping reduction of primary school children is abortion.
In 2018, the last year that abortion was outlawed in Ireland, there were 61,022 births while less than 3,000 women travelled to Britain for abortions and another 1,000 may have taken abortion pills. In 2024, there were 54,062 births – and 10,852 abortions. The devastating effect is evident from the data. The number of children being aborted before birth has leaped by many thousands from the beginning. And these are the thousands of children who should have started primary school this year but whose lives were ended while in the womb.
In total, there have been at least 50,000 abortions carried out since 2019 – probably close to 55,000 as we are more than halfway through 2025. The total of 50,000 abortions was confirmed by information released to Carol Nolan TD by the HSE which showed that at least 10,441 abortions had been carried out in 2024 – while an additional 1,742 abortions took place in January and February of 2025.
There is an irony to be found in the Department of Education giving itself credit for cutting class sizes, whilst the government has simultaneously overseen an abortion rate that has spiralled to more than 10,000 a year. To put the numbers into context, it’s more than the population of Drogheda, and far exceeds the total number of people living in Navan or Bray.
The prevalence of abortion is contributing to a major demographic shift. But the abortion numbers, which have rocketed since repeal, receive no prominence in the media.
You may find the figures buried in a report somewhere once a year, but there is no real analysis of same. There are no Prime Time special investigations – and only a handful of politicians who want to raise the shocking abortion rate. Less than a decade after voters were promised “safe, legal and rare”, ver few are willing to stand up and state the obvious – that we should be alarmed. Instead, we have media focus on how time limits must be scrapped, abortion must be ever-expanded, and how abortion availability is still not good enough – despite record highs year after year.
We hear significantly less about the cases lodged against the State Claims Agency over babies aborted due to misdiagnosis, or about the lack of official data from abortion providers, or about the dreadful experiences doctors have had performing late-term abortions in Irish hospitals using infanticide, and the babies being born alive after abortion. Truly dreadful things, facilitated by the State’s abortion regime, have been happening for years, yet the media and the majority of elected representatives have ignored all of it.
The media, who are guilty of bias by omission, then occasionally like to talk about Ireland’s demographic crisis and how it may be solved. Ireland’s population problem, I would agree, cannot be ignored. Options to deal with Ireland’s falling birth rate are limited, and as we know from Poland and Hungary, monetary measures can make some impact, but is also limited. It’s hard to imagine our own Government, which has more or less sent a message that children are a career hindrance and that abortion is likely the best way out when things aren’t perfect, ever going out of its way to incentivise family. It’s all about the angle, because even when we see that there are less children starting school, we can frame it as a good thing because, hey, who wouldn’t want smaller class sizes? But it’s an incomplete framing.
Because of a birth rate in freefall, the same generations starting school this week have diminishing hope of retiring with a bit of security and comfort. Policymakers and industry leaders have already expressed concern about the strain our ageing population will have, with tax hikes likely needed to prop up the State pension pot. Abortion should at least feature in the discussion around the baby bust.
We cannot make it more culturally important for people to marry and have children, two things which study after study confirm are important for human happiness and flourishing, and at the same time have a Government which seems obsessed with abortion. As has been documented, those at the helm of policy always seem money for more abortion, at any cost, despite a health service in chaos. It doesn’t matter if you have to direct money away from the National Maternity Strategy, or if staff shortages, overcrowding and under resourcing continue in other areas, there will always be money for abortions, which are now performed in all 19 of our maternity hospitals.
The hard reality that most of us would rather ignore is that one key reason why our primary school class sizes are shrinking is that so many children are now being aborted before birth. There should be a lesson for all of us in that.