Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I always welcome any Private Members' motion that highlights discrimination in education. I wish to be positive towards those who tabled the motion. It is a good one because there is no sector in Irish society in which we witness more discrimination than education. I have no objections in principle to such a motion, but it would be dishonest to pretend that the Minister could somehow ring-fence everything in education at a time when we are borrowing €41 million per day from our nearest neighbours. It would be impossible. I doubt that has ever happened in a democracy at any time in the past. No Department was going to escape, given our financial circumstances.

If the Members opposite are concerned about discrimination in education, there are areas of far greater discrimination than the one they have highlighted, which is that of PLC courses.

I point out to Members opposite and to the Sinn Féin group, which presented an amendment to their motion, that there are many greater examples of discrimination. The thread of thinking is the same. The greatest discrimination that takes place in this jurisdiction in terms of tilting educational opportunities against those who are less well-off, or who are the children of those less well-off, is the fact that for 40 years the party opposite - and Sinn Féin also because not one of its members mentioned this fact during the debate on the education budget - has supported 55 private schools getting €103 million as a subsidy from the taxpayers of this State. Such schools do not get this money in Northern Ireland or in any part of Scotland, England or Wales. If those Members are concerned about discrimination in education they should not stay up all night on the basis of the motion they proposed. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for that €103 million. The current Minister for Education, along with his Department, is the first Minister in the history of the State to have reduced this subsidy in any way. The reduction for this year was €6 million although I would have preferred if it had been €60 million. My position about the 55 private fee-paying schools is well known; I do not believe they should get a euro. However, in fairness, the Minister and his Department are the first to tackle this problem.

I refer again to another area of discrimination in education, the literacy issue. A speaker referred to Fianna Fáil's 14 year period in office. At present 17% of children at second level have difficulties in reading and writing. I know where the €103 million that goes to 55 private schools should be going. However, the problem of literacy continued to grow while Fianna Fáil was in office because it was not a priority. The party members can check out this Minister and his Department for themselves. For the first time there is a programme to deal with literacy issues, which is almost exclusively dedicated to children of working-class parents. The Minister, Deputy Quinn, has for the first time tackled the issue in the most substantial way possible. I wish to acknowledge that for the record.

Perhaps we could all work together to have fairness in education and not have an educational system which is exclusively for the great and the good, the privileged of society. The way to have fairness in education is to tilt it in favour of those who have literacy problems.

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