Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I thank the Senator for sharing her time. I would like to be fair but at best this is a maintenance budget. It is too little, too late because our great wealth has been squandered. The budget is lacking in vision and strategies, bearing in mind the needs of the knowledge economy which we must seriously address to sustain economic growth at a very uncertain time.

With regard to education, the quality of learning in the classroom depends on the quality of teaching. There has been no mention of targeted reductions in class size. In 2002 we heard there would be 20 pupils to one teacher in classes of under-nines. That promise was not kept. There is no commitment to preschool education and no thought has been given to universal preschool education, even if it was only in disadvantaged areas. There would be payback on such initiative in building hope and fighting crime by bringing people into the culture of education at an early age.

I spoke in the House on lifelong learning a number of weeks ago and indicated to the Minister the importance of making a commitment to ESOL, or English for speakers of other languages.