Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Táim an-bhuíoch don Chathaoirleach seans a thabhairt dom labhairt this morning. Yesterday evening at the gate of Leinster House I joined 600 people who were protesting at the cruel cuts in education for children with disabilities and special needs. The group of 600 included children with a wide range of disabilities, parents of children with disabilities and grandparents and grandmothers of children with special disabilities.

While I welcome the reversal of the cruel cuts to resource teaching hours, the Minister is not acknowledging that there will be 2,000 extra children with special needs entering the education system in September and he has not allowed for the allocation of money for special needs assistants.

This is the second time the Minister for Education and Skills has reversed cuts to people who are weaker in society and it shows how out of touch the Minister is with the weaker people in our society. At the protest yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Rihanna Dempsey. I have a picture of her before me. She is a child with special needs. Her mother, Lorraine, told me that she would dearly like to speak to the Taoiseach herself about these cruel cuts in the budget for the education of children with special needs.

In the 1916 Proclamation, which everyone in the Chamber buys in to and feels passionately about, the Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens. The Proclamation declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its equal parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally. This Government and the Labour Party Minister have clearly shown that they do not respect the weaker people in our society by not putting the educational moneys and supports into their developing their full potential, as all of us in the Chamber have been allowed to do.