Ms Margaret Gorman:

That is the one aspect of the education system that is missing. We talk about employment and resources but we rarely talk about the child and what is best for the child. Consistently when we attend meetings with the Department and various other stakeholders we ask where is the child in all of this. We do not represent patrons and, obviously, the Catholic patrons have very strong views and much to say on these areas.

I accept what has been said in regard to parental preference. Recent surveys of parents on preference show that parents have opted for the system that we have. One thing we might suffer from in Ireland is that we always feel we are the poor relation, that we do not do things best compared to international practice in terms of our own systems. If we look across the world, at our nearest neighbour, at France and Germany, it is clear they all have multiple systems of delivering education at primary and other levels. The important point is that it does raise standards. If one happens to be the parents located in one area where one's child attends the one school where standards are not what they should be, what is the basis for raising standards in that area?

Those are some brief comments in respect of some of the questions raised.