Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Fee-paying schools have had their pupil-teacher ratio significantly disimproved relative to what it was for the past 20 years. The burden of carrying the adjustment, correction or bailout - whatever the Deputy wants to call it - is, at the end of the day, putting a hand into somebody's pocket to take money out when they can least afford it, in order to regain our economic sovereignty. We have not fully recovered that yet but we are in a better place, as indicated by today's unemployment figures and other figures. Given a growing national population in the education space, we have tried to protect the delivery of front-line services and we will continue to do so.

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