Let the Minister tell the House she will appoint more. It is the lack of information that is so unfortunate in this respect. I must throw in a few more of these comments if I get such an animated response from the Minister. I am glad to see that she is listening with such great interest to what I have to say. I would be quite happy at any time to advise her on future planning decisions. With regard to the cuts now proposed for the RTCs and the NIHE, I look forward to hearing from the Fianna Fáil benches, those people who have made the case for the VECs and for the involvement of local authorities over the past two or three months, telling me what they think about the cutbacks in the RTCs, what it means in Sligo, Carlow and all the other places where the RTCs are located. Will they tell me what effect that will have in their areas and how they will respond? I look forward to hearing an honest response, as I am sure does the Minister. I hope they are telling the Minister at party meetings, even if they will not give us the benefit of their great knowledge here.
In the RTCs — the institutions in many instances closest to industries — in effect these cutbacks are ensuring the stopping of research and development. Likewise they are abolishing jobs in the building programmes now put on the shelf because of lack of money. It means that the building projects in the RTCs, NIHE, the Dental College in Trinity and so on are all now suffering with consequent immediate losses to the building industry.
It is also important to stress — because nobody else apparently will say it officially — that these cutbacks in allocations to the colleges and to the staffs at third level are a knife in the whole area of research and development, so important to future jobs. It means that those new areas of computer studies and computer technology — in which those people lecturing, imparting knowledge at third level have to spend at least 50 per cent of their time studying and acquiring new information — will not now be available to them.
The Minister may think she can sell these cutbacks publicly and get away with it. Many people feel that these cutbacks at third level are rarified and cut off from the rest of the real world. I can anticipate some of the comments that might come from some of the Minister's colleagues on those benches, that the real education and real university is the university of life. Let me tell the Minister that these cutbacks in third level education are a savage act against the poor of Ireland. I want to develop some of those points.
If the Minister takes, as she is doing, £250,000 from the budget of the colleges of education this year, the effects run right through the system. It means that in the colleges of education there are fewer jobs, fewer students and, eventually, fewer teachers. That is the first step. The primary schools at the moment, as the Minister well knows and has said time and time again when in Opposition — and I hope she will not be shy to repeat it tonight — have the largest classes in Western Europe, are the most under-resourced schools at primary level in Western Europe, are the most underfinanced at primary level in Western Europe and are operating with the lowest level of ancillary support and the highest pupil/teacher ratio in Western Europe. It is shameful that the Minister is now putting a further strain on this system which is already creaking and which needs support, help and investment rather than further cutbacks.
People ask where does cutting the number of teachers affect us? I want to give one example, one reference, one statistic that might stick in people's minds. For the South of Ireland to have the same pupil/teacher ratio or class size in their primary schools as is at present available in Northern Ireland, we would need, as the Minister well knows, 5,000 primary teachers trained immediately. The Minister's response to that need is to cut back on the Vote to the colleges of education. It is disgraceful and I might say in passing that the pupil/teacher ratio in Northern Ireland is the worst in the United Kingdom. It grieves me to say it, but at this point I must recall the crocodile tears of Deputy Mary O'Rourke, Opposition spokesperson on education, on the closure of Carysfort College last year. It should go into the record. It is shameful, when the Minister agreed to and accepted the need for development in this area, that she is now stewarding further cutbacks.
Fewer teachers at primary level again also means that quality suffers. The larger the class, the less time for the individual pupil. The academic nature of the educational structure means that the move from first to second level and from second to third level is very often determined by the pupil's level of academic achievement. If the pupils do not get a chance at primary level by being put into over-crowded classes which cannot cater for their individual needs, they will be behind at second level. If they are behind at second level, they will not get into third level and this, of course, is what the Minister hopes the public will buy, that third level does not concern us. Of course, it does not; it does not concern too many of the population who can never hope to get there. But they will all suffer the effects of cutbacks in that area. At the moment, less than 10 per cent of the young population can hope to be catered for in third level.
Of course — and this is the saddest part of it — where the poor suffer, the wealthy can buy their way out. If the well-off feel that the service provided by the State is not sufficient for the needs of their children, they go and buy a better type of education, as they see it, somewhere else. This is the area where the inequality of access in particular is reinforced. In fact, in the Minister's determination that the poor will suffer, this is where the vicious circle of under-privilege and poverty is maintained and maintained still further.
I ask the Minister: where is she going with education? What is it that she has to tell us about education? What is it that we can gain from these particular cuts that she has outlined? I appeal to her, rather than have us go through this charade of trying to find out where the cuts will take place, to have the courage to pull back the veil over her cutbacks and tell us precisely how she sees them being implemented at third level, second level and first level. Even though the debate tonight centres around third level, we want to point out to the Minister that the knock-on, accumulative effect in other areas concerns us every bit as much.
We are now looking at an educational service which is less and less able or ready to meet the wants of those who most need it. I have pointed out how the cuts at third level work their way down through the system to make it more and more difficult for anybody to get value out of the educational service. From the worst off parts of the community, let us take the example of those living in Sheriff Street, living in the worst housing conditions, with 70 per cent or more unemployment, with home and relationship problems, with stresses and strains of living in over-crowded, poverty-ridden conditions, with hardly a chance of employment.
These young people living there for 16, 17, 18, 19 hours a day then go to the classrooms and we expect that the primary classrooms of Ireland, already over-crowded, will in some way, over five hours of the day, counteract that environment and intervene to the advantage of those young people who are suffering from such an environment for the other 19 hours. It is not fair, right or supportable by anybody who is elected as a public representative.
I find it astonishing that, hand in hand with the draconian cutbacks to which I referred earlier, the Minister is also cutting back on the grants available to those who are involved in adult literacy courses and those who have not been able to avail of first chance education. Third level education for these people is the only chance they might have and the third level that they are talking about is a third level of adult education and adult literacy courses. Also, it seems incredible that, along with that, the Minister shaves another £250,000 off the paltry Vote that was available for projects to support and help the disadvantaged.
All in all, we are looking at a situation of growing student numbers, cutbacks in the money available to look after them, at a future where it will not be possible for the educational system to cope with the needs of any of the pupils. We are now cutting back on the services at first level, second level and third level, the disadvantaged, travellers — any of the groups who need our help. Whom are we serving at the moment? Whom are we looking after in the educational service? We are looking at the stress and strain of workers in education at all three levels. We are looking at the stress and strain now finding their way into the relationship between work in education and students or pupils in education. The Minister has a clear and absolute duty in this area. She must say that education is an investment in the future. All too often I have heard it said that third level education is something that people should see as a privilege.
It is quite all right for someone philosophically to consider third level to be a privileged thing and to be something to which one might aspire. That is a personal view, it is a personal philosophy that somebody may well have. I do not support it and I cannot even understand how it works out. If I hear Ministers and Governments saying that the young people are the hope for the future, if I hear them saying that we need to have development in education, that we need to have research, further technological developments, movement at all levels of education and then if pupils with ability cannot proceed through the system because their parents do not have the money to put them through, who loses? Is it the pupil, or is it the family, or is it the service? It is not; it is the State who loses. What we are saying is that we do not need the ability of young people: "If you cannot afford to buy your way through the system, get the boat and get out of here". That is the stark reality and that is the responsibility that faces any Minister for Education in this day and age.
We want to see a little bit of concern, a little bit of hope and a little bit of the confidence that we heard so much about during the election campaign. I stress to the Minister that what we are seeing here tonight is a vicious attack on education. It will create unemployment, force emigration and threaten the quality of the service we are giving. In fact, the quality will deteriorate and it will, without doubt, stop essential building programmes.
How can the Minister justify knocking and stopping essential building programmes at third level when up to six months ago she was shouting that they were so necessary? This will lower morale and threaten the security of everybody in education but more than anything else it will reduce the numbers of highly qualified young people who are so essential to future employment and to the creation of projects. We will no longer be able to hear Ministers for Education saying that our greatest resource are our educated young population if this continues. We will not have that resource in the future. We are now taking a step backwards.
In the history of this State there has been constant development in the educational services being offered to people and in particular to young people. There has been development in this area year after year by successive Governments. As a member of a teachers union I have fought with Governments for more, for better quality or for extra input but I never had to consider anything like the cutbacks that are now being effected. I am looking forward to hearing how the Minister can justify hitting the young people of Ireland in this way. As we say in the motion we accept the need to control public expenditure. Of course there is a need for control overall spending but the Minister has prioritised and in Government you have agreed and acceeded to a prioritisation which has hit the poor, has damaged employment prospects and has threatened the future of a young generation.
