Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank Deputy Brian Hayes for raising this issue. Just two weeks ago the ESRI published a report suggesting that in future our economic well-being will depend more than anything else on our investment in education, because rather than selling our manual labour, we will sell our brain power. Children are entitled to learn in classes of reasonable size and in classrooms that are orderly, unstressed and uncrowded. Because Fianna Fáil has reneged on its promise to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio to 27:1 per class next September, 28 schools will lose one or more teachers.

I refer to two schools on this list, one urban and one rural. St. Francis Xavier School in Roselawn, Castleknock, in Dublin 15 is threatened with the loss of one to two teachers next September. This school is both successful and popular. More than 25% of the pupils are international students, many with specific English language coaching requirements. In the junior school, from which the senior school pupils are recruited, the proportion of international students is even higher. This school is now faced with the loss of two teachers. Had the Minister for Education and Science and Fianna Fáil in Government honoured promises to cut class sizes, they would not be losing staff.

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