Education cuts reversal key to keep Greens in coalition

A REVERSAL of controversial education cuts introduced in the past year could be crucial to a deal to keep the Green Party in coalition with Fianna Fáil but Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe was unwilling to say yesterday if he is willing to concede such changes.

It is understood the Fianna Fáil team negotiating with their coalition partners has been in contact with the Department of Education over the past week about the cost implications of abandoning some of the cuts.

Two of the party’s three negotiators – Noel Dempsey and Mary Hanafin – have previously been education ministers, and have spent the past week with Justice Minister Dermot Ahern discussing a revised Programme for Government with Green Party Minister Eamon Ryan, deputy leader Mary White and Senator Dan Boyle.

The Green Party is seeking a return to September 2008 school staffing levels, which have been reduced by between 800 and 2,000 teachers – depending on whether the calculations of Mr O’Keeffe or teacher unions are to be believed. This and an insistence that third level fees should not be reintroduced in any form – despite Mr O’Keeffe’s known preference for a graduate loans system – are among key demands the Greens have brought to the talks, ahead of their party conference to seek approval for a revised programme on Saturday.

“These are all matters that are being considered in the negotiations, and we’ll await the outcome of the talks towards the end of the week,” the minister said.

“I’m not negotiating, but obviously I’m kept informed in relation to some of the issues that have been raised and obviously I’m feeding my opinions and my commendations into the talks,” the minister said.

He said the Government is having to take very difficult positions on numerous issues, with limited finances for next year and trying to decide how best to serve the interests of education, health and all other spending areas.

The Post Primary Education Forum, an umbrella body for representatives of parents, teachers and school managers, called for the protection of second level education in a revised Programme for Government. It said many cutbacks are hitting the most disadvantaged children by the dropping of programmes such as Leaving Certificate Applied and abolition of a grants scheme to help poorer families with the cost of school books, while staffing cuts have already resulted in schools dropping some subjects and classes being taught with higher and ordinary level students together who might previously have had separate teachers.