Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Starting with the issue of investment in education, I agree with Deputy O'Loughlin. I have a portrait of Seán Lemass in my office. It has returned to the Taoiseach's office. I think John Bruton had it, and certainly former Fianna Fáil taoisigh had the portrait there as well. I have it there to remind me of two things. The first is that it reminds me every day that I am part of a confidence and supply agreement, and to make sure that there is a Fianna Fáil image in my office. Michael Collins is there too of course. It also reminds me that Lemass was an enormously progressive Taoiseach. After an era that was characterised by autarchy, economic war, and very old-fashioned economic ideas like putting tariffs on the import of shoes because we should make our own, he really opened up Ireland to modern industry and investment. He also had a commitment to education. We are investing a huge amount of money in education now. The education budget is €10 billion this year. For the first time ever, it has exceeded €10 billion. However, even the richest countries have to make choices. Even with the education budget increasing every years, it is impossible to do in any one year everything we would like to do.

The Deputy mentioned pay parity. I imagine she would also like extra staff, as would we. She mentioned capitation, and also mentioned investment in school buildings. Much as we would like to be able to everything in one year, doing all of those things in one year is impractical. We can either focus on one of those four things, or we can try to spread our resources very thinly and do a little bit in each of those areas every year. I would be very open to the views of the committee on this. If members had €10, would they split it into €2.50 towards each of those four areas? Would they prioritise pay over capitation or buildings over pay? It would be an interesting challenge for an Oireachtas committee to advise on that because that is the kind of decision the Government actually makes. The easiest thing in politics is to call for more of everything now. The hardest thing in politics is to do what the Government has to do, namely, slice up that pie. It can be sliced in so many different ways.

I think we have done relatively well in recruitment. There are 5,000 more teachers working in our schools than was the case two years ago. That has been a big increase in numbers. We have been able to recruit them. In some subjects there are particular difficulties. There are also difficulties with substitution. Overall, however, the fact that we have recruited 5,000 teachers in two years speaks for itself. The starting salary for teachers, if they can get a full-time job, is €37,000 a year now. That is a pretty competitive salary for somebody who is just out of college and starting work for the first time. Some will have had careers before that but most will not. In the private and the public sector, a starting salary of €37,000 is pretty competitive.

I know that what offends teachers the most is that over the course of their careers, because of the two different pay scales, they stand to lose a lot of money. We have already managed to narrow that gap by about 75%, and we are willing to narrow it more. I can certainly understand why two teachers sitting beside each other in the staff room on two different pay scales would have a problem with that. I would probably have a problem with it too. We would have a problem with it here in the Dáil if we told Deputies elected next time that they should be on a different pay scale. It is something that we want to negotiate with the unions on. Some €400 million is provided for pay increases in the public service next year. That is a lot of money. That is just for pay increases. It is not going to get us anything in extra staff or hours worked. It is just going into pay. Perhaps we can, by agreement, recalibrate that in some way in order that more of it goes to the new entrant public servants who were recruited after 2011.

Last year, for example, a lot of public servants, if not most, got three pay increases; two small 1% pay increases and an increment. Maybe instead of three pay increases a year for everyone, it might just be one or two. We could give the extra money to the new entrants, to allow them to equalise sooner. What I would not like to do is take the money out of services. I think the right approach would be to try to negotiate some way to use that €400 million differently to benefit the newer entrants.

On the MFF and the EU budget, these come into effect in 2021 so there is going to be a long negotiation between now and then. There are also a number of variables, particularly concerning the UK and whether it ends up paying in any way into the EU budget for the various programmes it is going to access and so on. There are couple of ideas as to how we can increase income for the European Union. The view of the Government - I have articulated this on a number of occasions - is that we would be willing to increase our contribution to the EU budget provided the areas that we believe are important are protected. That includes the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, and the single farm payments in particular. It includes things such as research and development, Horizon 2020 and INTERREG. It also includes a lot of different programmes that we think are hugely valuable and Structural Funds. Those negotiations will go on for a couple of years, but certainly for one. Our opening position is that member states should be willing to contribute a bit more so that we can protect those well-functioning programmes like CAP. That is our opening position. However, if there are going to be cuts in CAP at all, I think it is the single farm payment and the payments to farmers that we should protect. We can make up for the rural development side, the second pillar, with national resources if we need to.

On Deputy Tóibín's question, Facebook's decision to no longer allow advertising in respect of the referendum that is paid for from outside this country is welcome. There is a general principle that foreign money should not be used to influence our elections and referendums, and I welcome the fact that Facebook has made this decision. Google's decision went further than I thought it would. I was a little surprised that the company decided not to host any ads at all from either side, or from anywhere, on the referendum. However, that is ultimately their decision. Google is a private company, and like any private company, whether it is a newspaper or a website, it can refuse ads if it wants to. Nobody is forced to accept advertising through their radio station, TV station, cinema or publication. That is the right they have. There has not been any contact between the Government and Google or Facebook on this. The decisions have been made of their own volition.