Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My nervousness is based on an unwillingness to welcome the posts until I see the people physically in place. When that happens I will be the first one to welcome them because they are critically important for children given that the windows of learning opportunity must be filled at an appropriate time. I see the upshot of the posts not being filled last year by virtue of the fact that I have a stream of people coming to me about deficiencies in service. Will the posts be filled in the first half of this year? If the situation drifts into the latter half of the year I would be concerned about the way budgets can get depleted and the ring-fencing becomes unhinged.

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