Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)

——that the professionals recommended initially.

It was said in the programme for Government that there would be class sizes of 20:1 on average for children under nine. The Minister has since scrapped this plan but, even were it the case or if the ratio were 25:1, how can the Minister justify that schools must take in junior infant classes of 29 pupils? Is it not ironic that, if one runs a child care centre and looks after children between four and six years of age, the Government will require the ratio of children to care workers to be 6:1 but when these children go into junior infants in primary schools, it is all right to have 29:1? How can the Minister stand over this?

On the matter of entry into schools, I wish to speak about the crisis in Mullingar. The schools are bursting and cannot accommodate what is happening. I submitted a parliamentary question to the Minister that was answered on 12 April 2005 but I must advise her to return to her officials and tell them that their response to my question was a load of rubbish. They are hanging her out to dry.

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