Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

Regardless of the Minister's performance during this debate, this is the Green Party's Stalingrad. The Green Party will never come back from this. It made so many promises in advance of the last election. Fianna Fáil stands indicted for ten years of broken promises in the education sector. In 2002, it promised that by 2007 those aged nine or younger would not be in classes of 20 or more. We now have 200,000 children in such circumstances in our primary schools. In 2007, Fianna Fáil promised that it would reduce the staffing schedule at primary level from 27:1 to 24:1 in its first three years in office. It promised to also reduce the staffing schedule for the core subjects at post-primary level. We are never going to arrive at that. The party lied to the people at the last general election, just to buy the election.

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