Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have an issue I omitted to raise. Not to cause problems for anybody, but is it possible to set out clearly the position of union members who leave a union? If an ASTI member leaves, and I am not encouraging anyone to do so, and stays outside the union, does he or she get the benefits of the Lansdowne Road agreement? Does such a person have to join the TUI to get the benefits of the agreement? Is that happening on any scale?

Guidance was mentioned, and of course second level is the right place to bring it up. Again the Minister in his contribution used the quota. This is deliberate confusion because when most people hear ex quota in respect of guidance, they think it means the situation that pertained up to 2012 before Ruairí Quinn cut that ex quota guidance counsellor provision. They think it means guidance as a separate allocation outside the quota. The quota means in practice that if the maths teacher or the French teacher can give the guidance, once he or she has given guidance the Minister is happy with that. In our confidence and supply agreement we specified the reintroduction of guidance counselling. That can only have meant the restoration of ex quota guidance counselling. This budget will have to tell a tale in that regard. Strong words have been expressed to the Minister on this issue and it needs to be delivered upon. There has been some improvement. We acknowledge that and we are happy with it, but we want to go the whole hog with this. This deliberate confusion and setting out to confuse people is very clever of the person who wrote it, but it is not impressing people when they dig deep and really begin to understand it.