Dr. Harold Hislop:

I will respond to the questions about arts education. Senator O’Donnell is correct that the report spends most of its time looking at Irish, English and mathematics standards in schools. That was simply because of the length of the report. In whole-school evaluations in primary schools we inspect usually about four subjects in detail: Irish, English - or Irish or English; it might be one or both of those - mathematics and another subject. The arts subjects – music, visual arts and drama - are on a cycle of subjects and we have conducted inspections in those. They are not reported on in detail in the chief inspector’s report.