Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to comment on the Book of Estimates and wish to focus on the area of education and science. There has been a triumph of spin over substance in the announcements last week by the Minister for Education and Science concerning the Book of Estimates. I do not see anything in the Estimates that will make a major difference to young people in the education system.

The area that received the most attention was the appointment of an extra 500 teachers which is supposed address the problem of class size. Class sizes in Irish schools are at the very upper end of the scale in comparison with other European countries. We have more than 100,000 pupils in primary schools and more than 35,000 in secondary schools in classes of more than 30. The Minister announced 500 extra teachers over two years. I think 300 will be employed this year and 200 next year. Even if it is 250 in each year, whatever way one looks at this, as there are more than 3,000 primary schools, an extra 200 or 300 teachers this year will not cut class sizes in the majority of those primary schools no matter what way those posts are allocated.

The programme for Government, with which the Minister of State is very familiar, promises that the Government will bring class sizes down to European norms and general international standards. It specifically states that all children under nine should be in classes with a ratio of 20:1 or less. The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, immediately said when she came into office that it was a noble aspiration that would not be achieved. That in itself is a broken promise to the people and a failure of the commitment in the programme for Government. I do not see how these extra teachers are going to make very much difference or even put a dent in the problem. That is the first disappointment.

I am also very disappointed that the National Educational Welfare Board is only getting an increase of 4%. Anybody in this House who watched the "Prime Time" programme last night will have seen the difficulties faced by the board. Its chief executive officer, who was on television last night, said that the board could only deal with crisis situations with regard to truancy and that it does not have the staff or resources to address the problem of children dropping out of school. Surely, if there is any vulnerable group in society, it must be young people who do not attend school regularly. The National Educational Welfare Board does not have the resources necessary to deal with the issue and its CEO said so quite plainly on television last night. It only has 73 educational welfare officers working locally but needs more than double that number to be able to address the problem.

There has been much talk in recent days about dealing with crime but if we do not catch young people at the point when they drop out of school or do not attend school, what hope do we have of leading them to any other path in life except a negative one? We have the opportunity to lead them down another path but it has not been taken. I urge the Government to provide more money in the budget for the National Educational Welfare Board because it has not been provided in the Estimates.

The area of youth work is related. I met a representative of the National Youth Council of Ireland yesterday. The council is extremely disappointed in the increase of 2.5% to the youth work budget, which is a very low increase. The council was optimistic last year because it received an extra €5.5 million but I understand not all of that money has been spent because the necessary decisions have not been made by Government on the implementation of the Youth Work Act. However, the council had hoped that the positive start would be built on, that the money allocated for 2005 would be spent and that further moneys would be available. This would have signalled a real commitment to youth work which, through an enormous number of volunteers, is dealing with the problem of young people who need support. It deals in a positive way with young people rather than the negative approach that comes later in the juvenile justice system if young people are not given the help they need. I am very disappointed that the youth work budget was not increased by more than 2.5%.

Another area of disappointment is the failure to implement the McIvor report on post-leaving certificate, PLC, courses which afford further educational opportunities to young people who do not attend institutes of technology or universities. The report recommended a structure to support the PLC sector and the money involved was €50 million for this year. None of this has happened. There is great disappointment because we are talking about people who are not in the top echelons, who are not going to be in the feeder schools listed in newspapers in recent days, but who want to go on and develop. The opportunities in the PLC sector often relate directly to the workplace. The courses give people opportunities to study subjects that will lead directly to a job after a one or two-year course. The subjects, by and large, are very practical. That sector needs to be built up and supported but, again, that opportunity has not been taken.

There is an evident lack of imagination in and support for those areas in the education sector for people who are not the high achievers, do not have the advantages others have and who need extra support from the Department of Education and Science. Those areas have not received support in these Estimates.

This leads me to the area of disadvantage and the promise that the DEIS system would be introduced next year, which was supposed to address educational disadvantage and for which there was supposed to be a budget of an extra €40 million. However, I questioned officials from the Department at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Education and Science and it appears that €40 million will not be available next year or the year after, rather there will be a gradual introduction of funding. Again, we are talking about children who need help now and for whom a little assistance in the early years of their school lives would make an enormous difference to their futures.

My colleague, Deputy Costello, and I raised a related issue during an Adjournment debate last week. A number of schools in disadvantaged areas, especially small schools, have lost resource teachers as a result of the introduction of the weighted model for the most common special educational needs areas. I urge the Government to address the issue of those schools, a number of which are in my city and also in Dublin, that have lost resources. These are the most needy schools with a proven need for educational support for resource teaching and they are losing out.

I draw attention to a statistic in the Book of Estimates which surprised me, namely, the reduction of 34% in special needs support for second level schools. I do not understand why that is the case in the current climate, especially after the implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act which surely should have meant a need for more special needs support rather than less. That is a statistic in the Book of Estimates that I find hard to believe. It is listed under subhead D.12, special needs assistants — second level, and there is a reduction of 34% in the allocation.

These are some of the areas I would tackle if I were in government. I take issue with what the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, said about the rainbow Government, which handed over a surplus, in terms of money in the coffers.

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