Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

It is the same old story from Joe. The record is playing relentlessly. Arrogance is not a characteristic that is either genetically endowed or politically acquired by the members of this Government in the past 100 days. In respect of school buildings, the Minister, Deputy Quinn, lives in the land of reality and has been one of the few Ministers for Education to state the facts of life in respect of the situation in which the Department of Education and Skills finds itself and the economic circumstances with which it is challenged. I recently had the privilege of opening a small two-teacher school for which funding was provided by the previous Government. All of the facilities were in place at a cost of €1 million. When one considers that we could build 3,000 such schools each year for the next ten years for the amount that has gone into promissory notes for Anglo Irish Bank, one can understand the scale of the challenge facing the Minister, Deputy Quinn.

I do not accept at all Deputy Higgins's assertion of arrogance creeping into the actions of Ministers who are faced with an almighty mess to clean up and an almighty challenge in so doing. Nor do I accept his contention of arrogance on the part of the Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, who is setting about implementing the programme for Government. That programme recommends the reform of the joint labour committees, as is a requirement under the IMF-EU bailout deal. It is not a function of Government to set pay rates. It is a function of the Government to reform the JLCs as set out in the programme for Government and under the conditions of the IMF-EU bailout.

I remind the Deputy - and I did not hear him comment on it - that the Government has reversed the decision to cut the minimum wage which, as the Deputy knows, affects low paid workers. That was separated from the issue of the necessity to reform JLCs. Far from the Deputy's assertion of arrogance creeping into governance by Ministers, the opposite is the case. They are dealing with reality. If Deputy Higgins wants to live in a fantasy world he can continue to do so.

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