Maintaining tax rates could fund class size cuts

FIANNA Fáil could fund much-needed reductions in class sizes if it chose to retain tax rates at their present levels rather than cutting them as proposed by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern over the weekend.

The cost comparison is based on the Government’s own figures.

When returned to power in 2002, the Fianna Fáil-PD coalition promised in its programme for Government to reduce the average size of classes for children under nine to “below the international best-practice guideline of 20/1” within its five-year term.