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

We have a way forward, which I accept. While symbolism is important, these amendments are not about symbolism. The wording of the amendment states “to prepare and submit to the Minister a strategy to raise adult literacy and numeracy levels.” That is not symbolic. That is a statement of intent and a reasonable objective. There have been plenty of tokenistic symbolic insertions into legislation in the past which have gone nowhere. I am not a fan of them as they do nothing.

However, this is not symbolic, because it asks that the service prepare and submit a strategy to raise adult literacy and numeracy. This seems to me a reasonable objective to insert. If the Minister of State feels it cannot be done today, I will be happy to accept his suggestion that we work together on it for Report Stage. I also question the suggestion that it would be necessary to list every other one also, but we can discuss that. The Minister of State has given us a way forward and I am happy to accept that.