IT WOULD be folly for the Government to calculate that its post-Budget woes are confined to the controversies surrounding medical cards and income levies. For a huge range of cutbacks in the education sector are only beginning to impact on the public consciousness.
In a radio interview yesterday Irish National Teachers Organisation general secretary John Carr labelled the Budget the "most callous, savage attack ever undertaken against primary school children". Secondary teachers share his outrage. The Teachers' Union of Ireland has accused Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe of "asset stripping" the education service while the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals says the changes to arrangements for substitution cover are unworkable.
The Budget imposed 32 separate cuts across the education sector which, between them, have two notable characteristics. Firstly, they have the potential to disrupt the day-to-day operation of schools, making life impossible for school principals. Secondly, a range of small-minded spending reductions appear to target the disadvantaged, newcomer children, those with special needs and Travellers.
But it is the decision to increase class size and curtail substitution cover that carries the greatest potential to inflict further political damage on the Government. Mr O'Keeffe says the increase in class size from 27 to 28 at primary level will see the loss of 200 teaching posts. However, the teaching unions reckon more than 1,000 posts will go. The net result is clear: the Republic will be left with the most overcrowded classrooms in the EU at a time when enrolment figures are expected to increase by in excess of 100,000 in the next decade.
The decision to curtail substitution cover - by denying it for uncertified sick leave and for those on school business at second level - is also reprehensible. Teacher unions and school principals say the lack of adequate cover makes the new arrangements unworkable. They warn that children may have to be sent home when the measures are introduced in January. All of which begs an obvious question: does anyone in Government appreciate the practical, operational burden such changes impose on schools?
There are a series of other shameful cuts in the education budget, betraying a reckless disregard for the weak and vulnerable. Library services for disadvantaged children are reduced; a new ceiling of just two language support teachers for each school is being introduced; support services for Travellers are being cut and new legislation - conferring a series of robust rights on special needs children and their parents - is being "deferred".
The cumulative effect is grave. In an already underfunded education system, teachers face new pressures, children will suffer and parents will have to endure serious disruption. The Government, not for the first time in this Budget, has failed to fully appreciate the impact of its decisions. The teacher unions and the schools management can expect strong public support as they campaign to have these measures reversed.