Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Likewise, the Fine Gael Party resisted postgraduate grants which we put into the confidence and supply agreement. The same applied to ex quota career guidance counsellors. There would have been no movement on career guidance counselling if I had not insisted that, despite Fine Gael objections, it be included in the confidence and supply agreement.

I am not interested in a tit-for-tat argument about who does what better. The parents of 43 children with severe and profound diagnoses of intellectual disability and autism do not want a figure of €10 billion thrown at them. They want a new school and a sense that somebody is listening to and aware of them because right now they do not have any such sense. I have met these parents. That is the problem and this is not about Deputies in a debating Chamber saying, "I will do it better than you do it", but about responding to real need.

Last week, a list of 42 new schools was published. No one went looking for two of the schools in Cork that feature on the list, yet a school that has been seeking a new building for three or four years is not on any goddamn list. Does the Taoiseach understand the frustration of parents when faced with the juxtaposition of the Government publishing a fantasy list claiming it will build new schools in three or four years' time, while at the same time it cannot even get around to providing habitable conditions for children who have been diagnosed with severe and profound intellectual disabilities?

The Taoiseach wants to know what my party's priorities are. Last year, we said our priorities were reducing the pupil-teacher ratio and increasing capitation. An increase in capitation is possible. It is unsustainable for schools to survive and meet their ongoing day-to-day running costs from the capitation grant they receive.

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