Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I am not against a tax rebate on moneys spent on research and development. I do not have a problem with this, but the money is over and above the amount paid in tax by companies. It represents a grant of €30 million. I received this information in reply to a question to the Minister. The challenge now for him is to take the opportunity to reverse the cuts proposed.

I had a meeting on Tuesday morning with school principals from the Inchicore and Bluebell area. They estimate that 14 teachers will be lost in five schools which have already lost 11 teachers since 2009, as well as 15 posts of responsibility. When we met teachers from the Dublin 8 area prior to Christmas, they had an horrendous figure for the number of teachers to be lost, some of whom are in the Minister's constituency. The cuts are not made in isolation; they are on top of cuts made by the previous Government.

Time and again those most affected are the disadvantaged. That is why the focus of the motion is on the DEIS programme which the Minister admitted in the House was working and delivering. It was beginning to have an effect and move children up to a level at which they could compete with others who were advantaged who could attend fee-paying schools. The proposals made by the Minister are an attack on front-line services, yet the Government has made great play of the fact that no cuts have been made to such services. The Minister should ask the children who will be affected next year and in the future whether these cuts are an attack on front-line services. I urge him to think again. In some ways the review he proposes is too late. He should have thought of this beforehand and understood the effects of the cuts before he even put pen to paper.

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