Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

The Private Member's motion from Fianna Fáil is an indication that one can spin anything one likes. The idea that these people would laud their achievements in education is an insult. Last September we had the outrageous situation, which prevails to this day, where 106,000 primary school pupils resided in classes of 30 pupils or more, representing 21% of the primary school population and which is the second worst pupil-teacher ratio in Europe.

It is quite clear that the last Government had an appalling record in education, but we can safely say the new Government is heading for an even worse record. The decision to pause the allocation of resource teaching hours, on top of the cap on the allocation of employment of SNAs, leaves every child in this State at risk. It is an absolute indictment of the current Government and will probably lead us to a situation where it will be in breach of the minimum standard of education promised to every child in the State. It is quite likely that unless the Government addresses this issue, teachers will be dealing with students with special needs without any resource teaching support whatsoever, while trying to monitor the rest of the pupils in their classes. This will have a devastating impact on the quality of each child's education.

For the first time, we are seeing a reduction in the number of mature students applying for college. We can see at both ends of the educational spectrum, that far from prioritising education, the Government is diminishing it. This is completely wrong, but the outgoing governing party has a brass neck to claim it did anything differently.

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