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In 1965, following a review of second-level education in Ireland, the report Investment in Education was published. While a concern with educational inequality and disadvantage pre-dates this report, it clearly identified the significant socio-economic disparities in educational participation at the time and emphasised an urgent need for remedial action. However, while the discussions emanating from this seminal report are concerned with issues around educational disadvantage, less attention has been given to the processes at play in underlying such inequality. Moreover, it can be argued that overarching debates on educational investment over the last 50 years (as reflected in the papers in this special issue) have focused predominantly on post-primary and higher education, to the detriment of early education. Given the recent proliferation of research stemming from the USA around the significant human capital and societal gains of early years investment – which is especially pronounced for disadvantaged children – this paper argues that it is vitally important that early education is viewed as an important window of opportunity for increased public spending and treated on par with later educational investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with a historical review of Irish education policy since the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, this paper focuses on the issue of investment in education through the lens of theInvestment in Educationreport. Following this historical review, the author explores how the legacy of the past continues to define the ways in which education is structured and delivered in Irish schools. The key achievement of the 1965 report was its success in altering the Irish state's perception of expenditure on education. While this was previously viewed as an expense and an obligation, the report highlighted its longer-term economic value as an investment in the future. While acknowledging the transformative impact of the 1965 report in terms of subsequent trends in the scale of public investment in education, this paper argues that the report's advice in relation to the nature of investment and to the optimal configuration of resources has been largely ignored and neglected in the intervening years. This paper revisits what theInvestment in Educationauthors describe as ‘the question of the existing organisation of facilities’ in an attempt to understand contemporary challenges in Irish education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]