Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

The Minister for Education and Science can nod and tut-tut all she likes but Ireland is the only country in Europe where teachers must cope with more than 30 pupils in a classroom. That is a disgrace when compared with Greece which has an average of 18; Portugal, 16; Latvia, 17; Lithuania, 15, and in impoverished Sri Lanka, where our charities send money, there are only 20 pupils to a class and we regard the people there as needing our help.

Here, in the Taoiseach's country, the Government has a surplus of over €2 billion. We have costed the price of an extra 1,000 teachers which would reduce classes to 20 pupils, at €39 million. That amounts to 20 cent per day per pupil——

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