Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The quality of education in fee-paying and non-fee paying schools is identical, regardless of their location, and this has been borne out by international studies. I have no intention of breaking a 40-year old tradition of recognising the fee-paying schools but I have said that while I continue to provide reasonable support for existing fee-paying schools, there should not be any further development of the sector.

See this speech in context