Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

It could be construed that he is doing so from what he said. The Government needs to assist in every way it can where disadvantaged status applies. Disadvantage was brought about by bad planning and incompetence in many cases. Huge housing estates were provided and no facilities were provided for the children therefrom.

I agree with the Deputy that education represents the gateway for everybody but there is always a difficult situation. The Government has no intention whatsoever of applying its focus to the detriment of those in disadvantaged schools. Rather, the opposite is the case in that the intention is to offer them all the help we can. As the Deputy well knows, the sad fact is that the obscene waste of hundreds of billions of euro over recent years constrains any Government in doing the job the current Government knows it should be able to do. We will obviously focus on this issue as best we can in the budget on 6 December.

See this speech in context