Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

On a recent television programme, the chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science, Deputy Gogarty, claimed that in the course of the final day of his party's exhaustive negotiations with the Minister of State's party, the latter was offering 300 additional teaching posts at 1 p.m. before increasing that offer at 5 p.m., when the pressure was on, to 500 posts. Will the Minister of State comment on that?

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