Greens fail to show for education cuts debate
THE Green Party failed to attend last night's Dail debate on an Opposition motion condemning the 32 cuts in the Department of Education's budget.
"This is the Greens' Stalingrad. They will never come back from this," said Fine Gael spokesman on Education, Brian Hayes.
One thousand schools would lose teachers next year as a result of the cuts, he told Minister Batt O'Keeffe, before adding, "and you stand indicted for that''.
But the minister accused the Opposition of peddling "outlandish claims" about the cuts, and insisted they were engaged in scaremongering over the past two weeks about the claimed impact on children.
Defending the need to make savings, he pointed to the world economic crisis, asking: "Are we to pretend that somehow we in Ireland can carry on regardless?"
Begged
Former Labour leader Ruairi Quinn begged the minister not to use the future of the country's children to copper-fasten what he called a botched Budget, but Mr O'Keeffe said Mr Quinn had refused on radio to say where else the money might be found.
"He is the most skillful hurler on the ditch I ever encountered," the minister said.
Speaking to her party's private members motion, Labour's Liz McManus said parents and teachers were standing in the cold night to defend children under attack -- when the Budget had claimed to be intended to protect the most vulnerable.
The withdrawal of English language support meant foreign children would find themselves lost, she added.
She quoted from letters received, including from one school with a 41-year-old boiler that had been shut down on health and safety grounds, leaving it with no heat.
"These cutbacks are shortsighted, unfair and unworkable," Ms McManus declared.
But Mr O'Keeffe said spending could not be allowed to spiral upwards as if nothing had changed. The debate will end today with a vote being called on a Government counter motion to the issue.
- Senan Molony Political Correspondent
