Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

The letter continues:

However I cannot in all credibility stand by some of the proposals made by your Department. I welcome many of the progressive elements of the Education budget, which I alluded to earlier in my contribution. But I must take issue with many of the cutbacks.

Sometimes a decision is just plain wrong and in this context I am asking you and the Minister for Finance to revisit some of the more questionable cuts to our Education service.

For many years, both as a member of a Government party and in opposition I have been unwavering in my calls for education to be taken seriously and given the funding it deserves.

I do not have to repeat what I have said about education being a building block for future prosperity and social cohesion and the collective failure of the body politic — Government and opposition — to give real commitments to education so that we may reap the real rewards, albeit in some cases beyond the narrow five year electoral cycle. Funding education pays back in so many ways. And making cuts in the wrong place can cause irreparable damage.

See this speech in context