Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate my fellow Cork man, Micheál Martin, on his election as Taoiseach and congratulate his wife, Mary, and their children.

As the youngest Member of this new Dáil, it is a real privilege to address the House. I thank the people of Cork North-Central who have given me this opportunity.

As a secondary school teacher, I have witnessed successive Governments failing on education, particularly in relation to special educational needs. One parent in my constituency has applied to ten schools for her child, who has special needs, to start secondary school in September. That family remains second on the waiting list at the tenth school. Fianna Fáil want to class themselves as the party of education and want to talk about their proud legacy in education, as we heard earlier. I would ask them to consider every day over this Dáil term the families calling to my constituency office in fear that their child will not have a school place for the coming academic year. We, in the Labour Party, understand that sufficient current and capital funding is needed to meet the demand for school places both in special schools and mainstream classes and we must ensure every school's designs are fully accessible for all.

The problems of parents do not stop there. There is the cost of childcare. Parents will tell you that in order to pay for early years childcare, it will cost almost an entire wage. The State should be ensuring that parents can afford early years childcare. As with many socioeconomic issues-----

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