Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach. Regarding pay parity for teachers, I know people who have been teaching for seven or eight years.

They are still earning less than €37,000 which is the starting point for new teachers. We have a cohort of teachers who have made the sacrifices in the past seven or eight years. The Taoiseach is talking about not being able to do everything in one year. I accept that he has been Taoiseach for less than one year, but his party has been in government for seven years and had seven years in which to deal with some of these issues.

On the issue of inequality, education is the greatest leveller for those who are disadvantaged and it is important to have more of a policy focus on it. It is not a question of choosing one area over another. Money is going in. The Taoiseach talked about an extra 5,000 teachers, but as the population is also growing, we need those teachers. However, we also need more, particularly given that the pupil-teacher ratio is going down. I make the same point on the capital building programme. With the population growing in Dublin and the commuter belt, we need buildings to provide a good education for children, as well as staff.