I move:
That Seanad Éireann, conscious of the promises made by Government parties in the general election campaign that no cutbacks in public services were planned, condemns the Minister for Education and Science for increasing third level registration fees by 70%; slashing by €11 million initiatives to tackle school drop out rates; reducing by €6 million information technology development; reducing the teacher training budget by €6 million; failing properly to fund existing policy in the area of adult education; and, in view of the confusion surrounding recent comments made by the Minister on the future of free third level fees, calls on the Government to support unequivocally the principle of free tuition fees in primary, secondary and third level education.
I welcome the Minister on his first formal visit to the Seanad. The amendment proposed by the Government side in no way gives a clear and unequivocal guarantee that we will have free primary, secondary and third level education in the future.
The Minister made many hasty decisions in his previous ministry during the term of the last Government. I suppose he regretted them afterwards when he had time to mull over them. In five months the Minister has outdone his predecessor, whose record was fairly dismal regarding education. He was passive and lackadaisical. As Minister, Deputy Woods brought parents of seriously physically handicapped children through the courts in order to deny them their entitlements to educational services and the right to further their education. Is it not odd that today in Limerick there is a 13 year old autistic boy retained in an adult psychiatric unit? It is an indictment on the Minister that he cannot provide a full-time place for that boy where he will be looked after and provided with the proper facilities to which he is entitled.
The former Minister, Deputy Woods, destroyed the morale of secondary level teachers, particularly members of the ASTI. That litany goes on and on. The current Minister has, in five months, surpassed what Deputy Woods did. His first strike was to increase college registration fees to €670. That came immediately prior to admission and many students had in no way prepared themselves for such a shock, nor had their parents. It is an unfair burden to ask any parent to bear. Many of them are at their wits end in trying to provide funding for their children's college education. The Government had not shown that it intended to increase the maintenance grant by such a derisory amount – 4% on a previously totally inadequate grant.
With the aid and assistance of his spin doctors, the Minister said he would be the pioneer for people who were denied access to third level education because of their disadvantaged status. What did he do? In one fell swoop he substantially reduced the funding that had been made available to provide that access. It was another U-turn, a deceitful move by the Government, consistent with what it has done since it was returned to office.
The Minister said that we will have a full review of the reintroduction of third level fees. He cynically said that hours after the media carried a statement from the heads of third level institutions on the origins of many of their students. That was a misleading article. The statistics, and the deductions made from them, were latched on to by the Minister in a way which misrepresented the truth. It is odd the Minister has allies in the president of UCD, Dr. Cosgrove, the provost of Trinity College and the president of NUI Maynooth. Why have they allied themselves with the Minister's notion? The Taoiseach and Tánaiste recently disowned this – the Minister is going one way while they are going another. One wonders if it is a decoy intended to soften public outrage. The Minister has experienced public outrage, which was unfortunate and unsightly to say the least. He brought it on himself through his indecision and his U-turns.
Does this Government have an educational policy? Does it have any targets, goals or sense of direction about where it is going? The Minister has often said that we value education. If that is the way he values education I shudder to think what is down the road and what students, parents and the disadvantaged will have to encounter under his stewardship.
We claim to be one of the richest countries in the world, but we have one of the lowest rates of investment in education in the OECD. How can the Minister reconcile that? He can, of course, call in the spin doctors to assist him but, unfortunately, they may also get him into a troublesome situation from which he would find it difficult to extricate himself.
I ask the Minister to exercise more caution and move with less haste. As Minister for the Environment and Local Government, he walked away from various muddles he created in terms of the waste strategy and in the area of planning. It emerged today that the social housing scheme he put in place in the Department of the Environment and Local Government is to be dispensed with. Will the decisions he is making now in respect of education be dispensed with in the future? The area of education cannot afford that luxury because we are dependent upon it to provide members of the workforce, on which we pride ourselves so much. If the Minister moved with less haste, he might not be undermined as often as has been the case heretofore and by no lesser persons than the Taoiseach and Tánaiste.
The Minister's record to date shows that he has constantly been bushwhacked by his superiors. I therefore appeal to him to clarify this evening his intentions with regard to the reintroduction of third level fees, access for the disadvantaged – which he has crucially and cruelly reduced – the level of compensation he intends to provide to hard-pressed students in respect of the €670 registration fee and the inadequacy of maintenance grants.