“My heart goes out to any parent with a child with special needs,” he said this morning. “I’m blessed that I’m not in that position. One couldn’t but empathise with the anguish and the energy that parents with a child with special needs display. Any mother, any father would go through the wall for their child and I understand that.
“What I’m saying is the amount of special needs teachers has grown exponentially since the time they were introduced and we’re going to look at how to use them more effectively.
“The Republic of Ireland has lost its economic sovereignty. We are effect in receivership. We don’t control our financial destiny at the present time. We can only get the money to pay a lot of people based on the terms of the troika bailout deal,” he said.
Addressing the INTO conference yesterday, he warned teacher union delegates of a stark and difficult road ahead. In his first address as Minister for Education, he outlined the range and extent of the economic crisis and said he wanted to be frank about the resources available.
The Minister said that “the budget figures for 2011 will stand and will not be reviewed” and there was no commitment to reverse the 10,575 cap on the number of special needs assistants.
The Minister stressed that resources for education would not be improved, and that earlier decisions would not be reversed.
“To put it bluntly, the money dispensed by ATMs to all public servants . . . is made available to Ireland by the European Central Bank at fortnightly intervals. Every two weeks the governor of the Irish Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, has to confirm to the ECB that Ireland is meeting the terms of the bailout,” Mr Quinn said.
He reminded delegates that there was a trade-off to be made for the Croke Park agreement that included a net reduction in teacher numbers in 2011.
These are Ruairi Quinn’s words yesterday at the INTO conference in his first speeech as Minister. This hard man talk is really easy to do when you are talking about depriving special needs children of their education – after all they can’t exactly do anything about it!
It is not empathy we want as parents of special needs children – we want action – and that action is just to implement Governmment Policy of the last 20 years as set out in the Salamanca Statement and is actually in legislation with the EPSEN Act 2006. Why be so dam arroagant about what can and cannot be done – why was that same attitude and beligerance not found when ex AIB Managing Director Colm Doherty walked away with Ruair Quinns Blessing with 3 million euro of unearned income. Where was all the fighting talk when it came to renegotiating the terms of the bailout -as Mr Quinn’s party said they would do before being elected.
Another fraud has just been perpertrated on the Irish people by electing a Government who promised us real Change but who have in actual fact not only brought no change – but have reiterated that they actually don’t intend changing anything.
Blaming the EU for not having the courage to implememt real change is not something you should be proud of Mr Quinn. Reforms that are needed are ultimately cost beneficial.
“Any mother, any father would go through the wall for their child and I understand that” ….. actions speak louder than words – I am sure that must have come up in one of those stories read to you at bedtime! SHAME ON YOU!
