Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

——that it builds incinerators which it told people it was never going to allow build or that it allows prisoners to continue to be rendered through some of our airports? The Green Party is dead; the Green Party is beaten and this is a sad day for this country. However, the Green Party has an opportunity to recover and to redeem itself. The Green Party can make a stand here today. This is a motion which is very simple; a motion calling on the Government to reverse the decision to increase class sizes. The Green Party, like every individual backbench Deputy in Fianna Fáil, will have the opportunity in a few minutes' time when the Ceann Comhairle puts this motion to the House to vote with the Labour Party. This is an occasion where politics is about standing for something. It is about standing by the children of the country, by their parents, by the education system. It is about the future of education in this country which is so necessary if this country is going to achieve an economic recovery or it is simply about staying in office, getting further and further out of touch with the reality of people's lives and further away from the promises and pledges that the same party and politicians made to the public a bare 15 or 16 months ago.

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