TUI's Initial response to today's Budget:

Comments from TUI General Secretary Peter MacMenamin:

“It is regrettable in the extreme that public sector workers have been hit with a further pay cut in the form of the increased income levy following the litany of cutbacks in October and the inequitable pension levy imposed on public servants.

TUI members are angry that the measures announced today do not appear to go about bringing to task the developers and banking executives who the taxpayer continues to bail out while the children who are the victims of the education cuts continue to suffer.

We welcome the increase of 6,910 places available in the Further Education and Higher Education sectors. However, with 83,000 additional newly unemployed people since January, this number is clearly inadequate in terms of meeting current and future demand.

For example, TUI had already sought the lifting of the cap on Further Education places. The additional 1,500 places announced today will still result in Further Education Colleges turning potential students away.

The €5m to be saved by a moratorium on the filling of management posts in schools and the review of special needs assistants is an extremely meagre saving in the context of the huge damage it will do to the day-to-day running of schools, effectively ruining the engine for the want of a few drops of oil

Extra psychologists referred to in the October Budget will not be recruited as early as anticipated. This is a further kick in the teeth for children with special needs.”