Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

After the budget the Taoiseach said in the House: "One tries to protect those who are vulnerable, isolated and caught in a trap." Nothing could be further from the truth as the detail of the budget has shown the exact opposite. The pupil-teacher ratio will rise significantly this year with the proposed removal of approximately 450 posts from DEIS schools, up to 800 career guidance positions and hundreds more from small rural schools across the country. The burden of the costs is such that students most in need of support will be hit.

Despite an independent evaluation of the DEIS scheme, which highlighted the great progress made, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, recommended as long ago as September that the scheme be cut. He said he could not find "any objective and equality grounds" for retaining it. In the past few days, however, he has reflected on this. He has realised that his decision was wrong and said: "I'm out of practice. We're getting back into the business of trying to do this. It's very difficult to adjust these kinds of things, you're dealing with calculations and assumptions." This admission explains a lot because it is obvious the Government looked only at the figures and amounts that could be saved and coldly dismissed the social cost of the cuts and decisions affecting children in education.

I visited St. Laurence O'Toole's school, a small school of 60 boys and eight teachers, in the inner city this morning. It told me that if the cuts go ahead, it will lose five teachers. Scoil Íosagáin in Farranree in Cork will lose up to 13 teachers. Scoil Padre Pio, on the north of Cork city, will lose five. The latter two schools are both Breaking the Cycle schools.

See this speech in context