Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief and to the point on this issue because the points that have been made bear no relevance to what is happening on the ground. If one had left this country and was away for two years and had read the press releases about the cuts in education, one would have assumed that the Minister responsible for the Department was somewhere right of Genghis Khan because one would not believe that it could be a Labour Minister. There has been a sustained attack on the disadvantaged by the Minister and the Department during the past two years. This time last year people were out on the streets throughout this country campaigning to get the pupil-teacher ratio restored to DEIS schools, schools which cater for those who are disadvantaged and which are on the front line of dealing with the most vulnerable people in our communities. What did the Government do? It cut places and supports to primary schools that are dealing with the most severe disadvantage in this State.

There is now an sustained attack on the further education and adult education sector at the other end of the scale. It is not credible for the Minister of State or the senior Minister to say that "we have increased the pupil-teacher ratio by two". The Minister of State knows full well that the profile of most people in further education and going back to education is that they are already educationally disadvantaged. To say that because the Government increased the pupil-teacher ratio in private fee paying schools, it can justify it on the other side for cheap political point-scoring is the most disingenuous thing I have heard in this House in a long time. It is not acceptable for people to say that because we cut the pupil-teacher ratio in the private schools and colleges we are entitled to rip supports away from people who are already educationally disadvantaged. These people who are in the most difficult circumstances now that there is 14.6% unemployment want an opportunity to go back to education, and they need and deserve that, to gain opportunities for themselves at a time they are most vulnerable now that they are unemployed.

For the Government to suggest this will have no impact is wrong. It will have a devastating impact on further and adult education courses. The Minister of State should not believe the nonsensical spin being put on it by the Department that the cuts will have no impact on courses in the further and adult education sector. We need honesty from the Department to restore budgets to ensure those from an educationally disadvantaged background will be given a second chance. For most of the people in question, the system has already failed them and the Government is now deliberately targeting them with the result that they will never have a chance or an opportunity.

The Minister of State has said the further and adult education sector is the Cinderella of the education sector. If it is, not only is the Government taking the glass slipper off her, but it is also taking the clothes off her. This attack is an awful indictment of the Government and the Labour Party in particular. I have looked at the promises made prior to the general election and in the programme for Government. I cannot find in either the various manifestos or the programme for Government a statement that the Government would make cuts in the further and adult education sector. The Government is going against the very thing it said it would not do. It is, in effect, undermining the capacity of the State to make amends to people who fell through the cracks at primary and secondary education level. It must acknowledge that this is a grave error. If it speaks about social justice, equality, parity of esteem and giving people a second chance, these cuts are anything but.

I am disgusted by the PR spin in the Department that disadvantage is something that can be attacked on a continual basis. It is shameful to take funding from DEIS schools and further and adult education programmes when another part of the education sector is short a few million euro. The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, is a member of the Labour Party, a party that always championed the disadvantaged when it was on this side of the House. Now that the shoe is on the other foot the Minister has singularly failed. He has failed because he does not understand what disadvantage entails or the efforts people make to claw themselves back on to the opportunity ladder. The further and adult education sector is an integral part of that effort.

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