Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the meeting. On a related matter, I commend the Minister on his work on addressing the cost of school expenses for parents. I heard his interview on George Hook's programme on Monday evening, and as I said to the committee earlier, his proposal is a positive step forward.

The Greeks are finalising their Presidency programme for the next six months. There is often insufficient long-term thinking or planning in the area of education. Much of the approach is of the fire fighting type. Since the Minister has taken office he has unfortunately been tasked with the huge challenge of dealing with a much-reduced budget. We need to consider where we want to be in ten years time in terms of our class sizes and pupil-teacher ratios. Could a pan-European approach in this respect be included for the Greek Presidency? We could examine this aspect and set ourselves targets. We need to grasp this issue once and for all for the future. Unfortunately, at every budget time we have a discussion on whether the pupil-teacher ratio would have to be increased by one or even two pupils.

We had a discussion on whether the pupil-teacher ratio could be increased by one or two. We must examine how we can reduce the pupil-teacher ratio and have it more or less set in stone so that one can say, this is where we are as a country and this is what we want to achieve and maintain for the future. Does the Minister believe that could be factored in for the next Presidency? Would he be willing to champion such an initiative?