Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

For the Taoiseach's information, the real world is one in which hard-pressed parents, under enormous distress as a result of the disastrous crisis arising from disastrous policies by the establishment in this State, are insulted by a Minister of the Government who asked what the hell are they doing. Will the Taoiseach apologise on behalf of the Government to those parents? The Minister was referring to a school in Carlow but it can be applied generally to those parents who to my certain knowledge are fund-raising weekly to make up for a lack of funding. Moreover, is the Taoiseach stating that the comments made by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, on Sunday last is Government policy and that he will cut the wages going to the poorest of the poor workers in this State, while relatively speaking, the Government will not touch the multimillionaires and billionaires in our midst?

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