Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I fully respect that this is part of the job of the Opposition, including Deputy Finian McGrath, and God knows, after the past seven or eight years, the list of issues the Opposition can raise or criticise is long. However, the job of the Opposition extends beyond listing a litany of criticisms. At some stage, it must tell us what it proposes to do. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien was getting around to doing so yesterday when he called for more special needs assistants, improvements in the apprentice programme, a literacy and numeracy strategy, which is an issue Deputy Finian McGrath has raised in the past, and investment in services. The Deputy is correct about all of those issues. He now has six long months to tell us whether the Government's assumptions are correct and, if not, what should be the parameter figures. He must set out how he would use available resources, including what proportion of them should be devoted to education, health and child care. I believe a significant amount should be devoted to these issues.

The Government will address the issue of investment next month when it produces a capital plan. Sinn Féin can criticise the Government for not previously affording it an opportunity to explain how our assumptions are wrong and what it would do differently. We are now giving it a golden opportunity, in technicolour, to do so over the next six months.

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