FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin has accused the Government of having a “deeply cynical” approach to education and said his party would oppose any “indiscriminate cuts” in the upcoming budget.
Mr Martin said every significant expansion in educational participation had come about through the policies of Fianna Fáil governments when he delivered the address at the annual Seán Moylan commemoration in Kiskeam, Co Cork.
“Education is a core value for us and one where the need to challenge the current Government . . . The Government’s talk [is] about cutting teacher numbers, cutting special needs assistants, increasing class sizes, reducing the number of years of second-level education and preventing children from starting school at [age] four. If this agenda is implemented it will cause huge damage.”
Mr Martin warned that Ireland could only have a strong economy if it continued to give priority to education, saying the parts of the economy that had remained robust and created jobs were sectors in which “skills and advanced knowledge” were most important.
“There were no terms and conditions attached when the now Minister for Education [Ruairí Quinn] took time off days before polling in order to pledge to stop third-level fees and reduce charges,” he said.
“The reneging on this pledge exposes an approach to education which is deeply cynical. Indiscriminate cuts to education cause both social and economic damage. They can be avoided. I am absolutely determined that education will be at the very core of our work now and well into the future.”
Meanwhile, Mr Martin also delivered a thinly-veiled attack on Sinn Féin when he said Fianna Fáil had remained committed to “non-violent republicanism” throughout the period referred to as The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and said those who espoused “militant republicanism” had “served no purpose but to shore-up partition” and “inflict unnecessary misery on ordinary people”.
He said the peace process marked the “absolute victory” of constitutional republicanism.
“We stood steadfastly against those who sought to denigrate the great achievements of our War of Independence by pleading historical continuity as a dishonest defence for terrorist atrocities. And we were unceasing in our contempt for those who bypassed constitutionalism and were deaf to the mass support of the Irish people for non-violent republicanism.”
