Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Amendments No. 34 and 37 are similar to the ones we moved in the previous section about bodies representative of adult learners and community and voluntary bodies, so hopefully their spirit will be accepted and we will return to it on Report Stage as needs be.

On amendment No. 30, which I have jointly submitted with Deputy McConalogue, the service would have to "prepare and submit to the Minister a strategy to raise adult literacy and numeracy levels in accordance with section 9". The issue here with adult literacy is that 23% of the adult population of Ireland are functionally illiterate. As a Government and as a society we have to realise that fact in everything we do and every strategy we come up with, and knit into every piece of legislation that goes thorough our hands a strategy to tackle that. We cannot address this problem until we admit there is a problem.

I vividly remember that when I was in opposition and there was controversy over FÁS, the current Minister - then the Labour spokesperson on education - proposed this very thing and it was not accepted by the Government. Now is the time for us to be generous again with our legislation and accept the fact that we do not have an adult literacy strategy in this country. We have an adult literacy crisis. It is not refuted by anybody that 23% of our adult population are functionally illiterate and cannot read this legislation, site notices or instructions on medicine bottles. These are very basic functions that they cannot engage with in their lives. We have consistently, over decades, failed them. Previously FÁS had no adult literacy policy, which was absolutely flabbergasting. We now have the potential to knit into this legislation the construction and submission of an adult literacy policy and this is the time for us to take up that challenge and run with it. I feel very strongly about this and I hope the Minister takes the spirit of the amendment on board and that together, across parties, we can come to terms with the challenges ahead of us and put into this legislation, finally, a strategy to combat this crisis in Irish society.