In his address the Minister of State said "Going forward, we need to pay particular attention to early childhood education" with which I agree. He added "In the context of scarce resources and competing demands on the public finances, we must keep the focus on disadvantage." While I agree with the Minister of State on the need to focus on disadvantage I notice he says who should pay for education and training, and at what level, is also a vexed issue in most OECD countries. He is obviously referring to the Government's considerations as well. I welcome his comment that "these figures do not provide a case for cutting back on third level, rather they point up a need to devote relatively more resources at primary level, especially in cases of disadvantage." That seems to be a shift in Government policy because when the Minister for Education and Science talked about reintroducing third level fees his intention seemed to be that the money saved in this way would be invested in primary and secondary education. That argument was exposed to be false and really the Government wanted to make cutbacks. I am pleased to hear what the Minister of State says here because it indicates a shift in his approach and I call on the Government to continue holding the recently expressed view that the issue is not to set one educational sector against another.