FINE GAEL education spokesman Brian Hayes has accused the Government of "unbelievable hypocrisy" for apparently changing its position on immersion language classes for migrant children.
A controversy arose this summer when Mr Hayes suggested many Irish parents were frustrated at the effect the lack of "segregation" was having on their children's education.
He later said he regretted using the term and should have referred to immersion, whereby some newcomer students are given intensive language tuition before being placed in a mainstream class.
Yesterday he argued that, while the Department of Education had originally appeared to rule out immersion, Minister of State for Integration Conor Lenihan told a conference this week he had "no difficulty" with some schools taking that approach.
"That was not their position when the controversy raged. It's unbelievable, this kind of hypocrisy. When the issue first came out, the Department of Education made it very clear that the immersion route was not something that they favoured," Mr Hayes said.
"I think I became a whipping boy for certain elements in Fianna Fáil because of my clumsy use of the word 'segregation'."
He also said that, while immersion may not be necessary for the majority of new students, it may be needed in cases where a 14-year-old, for example, arrives at school with no English.
That case was supported by the preliminary findings of a study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) showing that some 20 per cent of primary and secondary schools already use immersion, he said.
"The ESRI study shows exactly the point I was making," said Mr Hayes.
"There was this knee-jerk reaction by people who chose to deliberately misinterpret what I said."
