Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

For my part - and this is without prejudice to the report and whatever recommendations it may make - I feel different schools will have a different ethos. For example, it was brought to my attention when I attended the primary schools conference in Sligo that for the Reformed Church community in that part of the country small rural schools a far distance apart are very important to the maintenance of their Protestant ethos. We would respect that. Likewise, if one has a gaelscoil or a school in a Gaeltacht area then one would have to take that into account as well.

We will try to be as accommodating as possible, but as I indicated yesterday evening in a debate, this country has lost its economic sovereignty. This Republic is no longer in control of its cheque book. Everyone who works in this institution, every Deputy and every teacher in every school is now dependent on Professor Patrick Honohan the Governor of the Central Bank reporting on a fortnightly basis to the European Central Bank, which is the only bank that will lend us money at anything like reasonable rates, that we are meeting our targets and reducing the deficit between what we are generating by way of tax income on the one hand and what we are spending on the other. That gap is enormous. I will indicate the scale of the gap. The budget of the entire Department of Education and Skills, including salaries and everything else, is €8 billion in round figures. If we were to eliminate that, which I do not suggest for a moment that we would, we would still have a deficit of €1 billion.

We must regain our economic sovereignty as quickly as possible. Across the entire spectrum of expenditure we must look at everything from the point of view that we are spending money that we are not earning and the people who are lending us that money will only lend it on a continued basis until such time, in as short a time as possible, as we get our budget deficit down to 3%. That is the background that confronts every Minister and every Department.