Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I extend a very warm welcome to our guests, both adults and young people. It is wonderful to meet them. We do a lot of talking here about children and children's things, and it is nice to be talking to the end users - I suppose you could put it that way - and the people who are at the coalface. It is great that they are engaged and prepared to give their time to this very valuable project under the leadership of Dr. Muldoon and the OCO.

I was young once. It is so far back that I cannot remember it now. It was a different world then. We did not have mobile phones or iPads. We did not even have a TV until I was 12 years old. There was very little drug abuse in the community at the time, and far less pressure on my generation than the young people here have to put up with. We did not have as diverse a cultural spread in those days either, regrettably. The way in which our guests have embraced that is wonderful. They are championing it and are prepared to see all students and young people as equals. I think that is wonderful and it is a great example for adults to take from them. We can learn from them. The only thing we did not have was the wealth and infrastructure of the modern world. There were no community centres in my day. We went out on a field with a football and that was it. We probably did not have the diet and nutrition that our guests enjoy today, even though my mother would kill me if she heard that remark. It was a different world anyway.

I want to pick up on a few points that were raised. By the way, I was a teacher for about 20 years, in both Kerry and in Dublin and at primary and secondary levels at different stages. Where are our guests from, by the way? I hope and pray they are not all Dublin people, although perhaps that would be very convenient for organising it. In the report they did for the UN and the survey they carried out, they started from the age of 18 down. How far down did they go? What was the youngest participating group? Are we down into infants or where are we there?

Pieces of Us is a remarkable piece of work. I had a chance to go into it before coming down today. One thing that shocked me was the references to racism among teaching staff. As a former teacher, I condemn that out of hand and am shocked and very disappointed by it. I think our guests put up the remedy when they suggested that there should be a wider range of cultures represented in the teaching staff to correspond with the more diverse group that young people make up. That is something that will have to be pursued. If nothing else, it has been highlighted by our guests' work. It is absolutely reprehensible that a teacher who is in loco parentis would treat any student differently from another. Believe me, I speak for the vast majority of teachers when I say that. I reject those who behave like that.

The more diverse curriculum is a good idea. The curriculum is quite broad. I do not want to be going back to my days but when I went to secondary school it was English, Irish, Latin and Greek. That was the extent of it, as well as history, geography and maths. Today's curriculum is way more diverse than the one we had but, obviously, it needs to be more diverse to represent young people and the population breakdown.

I do not have a whole lot more to say. I admire our guests greatly and I will listen to the other questions and answers. I thank them for being here.