Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I suppose in the aftermath of a budget, perhaps it is easy to don the political jersey and find everything that is negative in it but I do not think that it is necessarily fair or adds anything to the political debate in this country. There are good things in this budget and anybody with a fair mind would acknowledge that. However, I would like the Leader to address two issues which concern children. These are two issues in which we expected the advancements of the past number of years would have been built upon. One is the issue of class sizes and the second is the issue of free GP care for those under 12 years. When an improvement is made over a number of years, it is a reasonable expectation that this improvement would be continued.

Over the past number of years, class sizes in primary schools have not been made worse. They have not been increased. In last year's budget, the pupil-teacher ratio was decreased at primary and secondary level. It was reduced by one point at primary level where the issue is acute. The expectation was that over a number of years, it would gradually be brought down. That did not happen in yesterday's budget. I am a bit disturbed by that because surely when we now have resources to invest in areas that are clearly crying out for investment, class size is one of those issues that affects every school-going child in primary school and their parents. Many children in large classes will do fine because they can achieve in any circumstances but children with special educational needs or behavioural difficulties are the ones who will benefit from smaller class sizes. The vision of going from having the largest class sizes in Europe to progressively bringing down that pupil-teacher ratio is something I thought would continue from last year but it has not happened. I think we should have a discussion on that in this Chamber.

Again, we made a huge advance on the issue of free GP care for children under the age of six. I felt at the time it was a major advance that also would be continued. Again, for some reason, free GP care for those under 12 has slipped below the radar. The children of Ireland who had a reasonable expectation that their class sizes would have come down and that free GP care for those under 12 would also have been introduced will be a bit surprised. Where is the Government's vision for those two areas?