Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

The Tánaiste accused me of making things up. I wonder whether, when the principals came to meet his colleague, the latter equally told them that they were making things up when they set out in graphic detail, I am sure, the consequences of moving a pupil-teacher ratio of 15:1 to one of 22:1 as was then envisaged. Even the response the Tánaiste has just given indicates that teaching posts will be lost and that children who rely, in the first instance at primary school level, on direct intervention and small class size to have a chance, not just in educational terms but in social and life terms, will be compromised by his Government.

See this speech in context