Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I begin by commending Deputy O'Sullivan on tabling this critical motion. Anybody who has attended the public meetings taking place across the country will be aware that the issue of class size has captured the imaginations of the people. The crowded meetings taking place throughout the country are ample testimony to the importance of the issue and the critical need to resolve it.

Last week a slew of Ministers scattered to the four corners of the globe where they basked in the reflected glory of Ireland 2007 and the Celtic tiger economic success. When asked the root cause of our economic success, the most frequent response is our education system, our investment in our people and the preparation of this generation, the most competitive, literate and numerate we have ever had, to be among the best in the world.

Unfortunately, the acknowledgement that education has been the key to the Celtic tiger success and the announcement that we are a knowledge society and economy is mere lip service, in the context of what we do to maintain education and its vibrancy into the future. My colleagues have given examples of the decline in the percentage of GDP we afford to education. Even in poor times, governments more stressed than the current Government for financial wherewithal always managed to prioritise education.

If education is a critical component of our economic and social well-being, class size is the critical issue. As a primary teacher — now a long time out of the classroom — I know from experience that class size is the most important factor in determining quality education. The pressures on teachers have increased immeasurably since my time in front of a class. In societal terms, it makes abundant sense to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio. In cold economic terms, it makes undeniable sense to invest in the infrastructure of education, both personnel and material.

What does the motion call for? I will repeat its demands for those who are unclear as to the content of the motion or who have not read it in any detail. First, it calls for an agreed timeframe for meeting the Government commitment on class size. We ask no more than that the Government lives up to the promise it reneged on in the past five years. Second, it calls for an understanding that recruitment and deployment of additional teachers is not an end in itself. Unlike those people who only talk about teacher numbers, we talk about the buildings required and the quality of those buildings.

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