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In any private industry, where labour shortages exist, salaries are raised to alleviate such shortages. The PPF is a blunt instrument that lacks the flexibility to deal with such situations in the public sector.

Since the foundation of this state governments have not had to invest seriously in education or health. There has existed in Ireland, up to recent times, a large body of religious who gave freely of their services for the care of people. As we know, the religious orders have been hit by a serious decline in the number of vocations. Consequently, services that have been given free of charge in the past are no longer available - the state now needs to pay for them.

Education is very expensive. Every child in the state spends many years in school. Giving in to teacher pay demands will be very expensive. Increasing the amount the state pays for education is something future governments need to get used to - it will not come cheap anymore. However, the long term benefits to society are enormous: a well-educated work force to fuel a knowledge based economy, high morale among the teaching profession and highly motivated school communities that nurture positive values amongst young people enabling them to become good citizens.

Student Xpress is an idea developed by a number of secondary school teachers who wished to develop a medium for young people to express their views on a wide range of subjects. In this issue we depart from the usual format of having a CSPE supplement in the centre of the paper. Instead, these teachers express their point of view about the teachers' dispute.

In these articles we demonstrate the need to pay teachers a proper salary. In 'Who Really Cares?', Peter Prendergast highlights the teacher shortages that are impacting on schools, especially in disadvantaged areas. In any private industry, where labour shortages exist, salaries are raised to alleviate such shortages. The PPF is a blunt instrument that lacks the flexibility to deal with such situations in the public sector.

In the article 'Who will teach me? the teacher shortages that exist in the Sciences is examined. This will impact negatively on our knowledge based economy. In further articles we demonstrate that the political will does not exist to invest in the areas of health and education. We demonstrate this by reference to recent cases involving the care of old people and the treatment of autistic children.

On the final page of this supplement we look at the irreponsible behaviour of a government intent on spending enormous sums of money to build a stadium and ask who is really behaving irresponsibly.

We start off by looking at the strike from the point of view of two students.

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