Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)

Sinn Féin opposes the Fianna Fáil Private Members' motion and I urge Members of the House to support our amendment. We take issue with the spin used in the first part of the motion and what could only be described as the wholly unwarranted self-congratulatory tone used by Fianna Fáil throughout the text. This motion must go much further if we are to truly stand up for educational rights in this State.

Education in Ireland is now a commodity. Taxpayers are expected to pay the wages of teachers in private schools while their own children go to school in mouldy prefabs. The child from a privileged background can afford extra tuition while children with special needs go without appropriate supports. Special needs assistants are paid just over the minimum wage and yet they are the ones losing their jobs. Why does the Government not stop paying the salaries of teachers in private schools? It is nothing short of a scandal that Fianna Fáil and the Green Party engaged in a full-blown attack on education services by cutting capital funding, increasing the pupil-teacher ratio, cutting funds for special needs and education disadvantage, and administering a comically inadequate back-to-school allowance. Fine Gael and Labour are now quite happy to continue this.

The Fianna Fáil Private Members' motion notes the expansion in third level participation. While we welcome this, it was its budget that made changes to the grant system that increased the qualifying distance for the non-adjacent grant from 24 km to 45 km. While we would call for a complete overhaul of the grant system so that grant rates reflect the true costs of going to college, the original qualifying criteria must be restored as an interim measure.

The Fine Gael-Labour programme for Government was full of well-meaning platitudes about education. Buzz words such as "radical", "reform" and "equality" are featured prominently. These buzzwords mean nothing to the young people from places such as Balbriggan who cannot afford to move out of their homes and must sit on buses for almost four hours a day commuting to and from UCD because the meagre grant they receive barely allows them to buy books let alone move to be near their college. Those four hours could be spent studying.

Once again, as we saw with the universal social charge, there is no equality of outcome here. Those who receive third level grants are already on the lower end of the income scale. Clearly ensuring equality in education is not a priority for Fine Gael or Labour. Have they taken the view that the working poor, the low income families who are scrimping and saving to feed and educate their children, can sustain this? Why have low-income people become the Government's financial punch bag? This increase in the qualifying distance for the non-adjacent grant was a cruel measure initiated by Fianna Fáil and carried on by Fine Gael and Labour. Simply because the criteria moved by 20 km on a particular day it does not mean that young people in receipt of those grants have any more money than they did before it was moved. All it means is that those young people who are only barely managing financially when it comes to going to third-level education will find it even harder.

The Government knows the furore that will ensue if they introduce third level fees - which is most definitely on the cards - so it is doing it by stealth. It is attempting to make it so difficult for low-income young people to attend third level that eventually they will just drop out or not even apply in the first place. Constructive dismissal has now reached the classrooms of our universities.

Sinn Féin will not support this motion and will call on Members to support our amendment. Fianna Fáil Members have hard necks laying this motion before the House. One thing is certain. If they had as hard a neck with the IMF as they did with the ordinary working person in this State, we would all be considerably better off.

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