Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I return to something Ms Ní Ghallchóir said. She may have taken me up wrongly. I am proud of the way I learn, but I learn in a particular way, as many do. Evidence of this is the fact that after 13 years, 99% of the pupils in my class did not know how to have a conversation in Irish. It was not that we collectively decided to be stubborn and that we would not try. We tried just as hard as pupils in the other class, which was classified, apparently, as the smarter one. I would not believe this because many in the not-so-smart class did better than those in the smarter class when they got out into the real world where practice was more important than books.