Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

The Minister has a difficulty in reading the newspapers and in communicating with these people. If he is in constant communication with them, is he not aware that the Church of Ireland, the Methodist community in Ireland and the Presbyterian Church have publicly asked him to reverse these cuts as late as two weeks as ago? Regarding the Catholic fee-paying schools, the Minister said that he would be discriminating against one church in favour of the other. I suspect he is also unaware of the following point, because he barely understands the detail of this. When representatives of the sector appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science, those representing the Catholic schools made it clear that they had no difficulty in allowing the 21 Protestant schools continuing to have those grants because they respected the position that had historically come down from the time of the introduction of free education in the 1960s.

The Minister has continually put misinformation in the public domain about this issue, which has not been helped by his less than sensitive remarks today. I suggest that he needs to get this right. He is on a collision course that has considerable implications across the island, North and South. Before he goes down the route of seeking confrontation he should think again.

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