Mr. John MacGabhann:

I hope I will not repeat too much of what my colleagues have said. We want schools to work and to work more effectively. That means we want them to work for the students. The purpose is to serve the interests of the students.

The fact is schools are struggling at the moment. Resources have been pared back; nobody denies that. In particular, schools are struggling to maintain pastoral structures that were just about at the point of being embedded when economic disaster struck. In respect of what Senator Ruane said, I was a teacher for 24 years in a Tallaght school and I saw things improve because resources improved. Precisely the point the Senator made about confidence began to become evident in the community. People - parents and students - began to become empowered. They also had local structures that they understood and local access that they could use. My problem with Deputy Daly's Bill is that it will create another remote, statutory satellite. If there is one thing we have plenty of in the sky above education, it is satellites. We have any number of them.

Deputy Daly has described a remit that is very broad. Among the things included in it is, essentially, the remit of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. The Deputy included what is already very explicitly within the remit of other statutory bodies. In that context, something as broad and vast as the junior cycle would absorb resources in a manner that would not allow the sort of access that Senator Ruane has sought. What we want to do is make schools work. That involves, among other things, making student councils work and making them meaningful. We do not have an objection to student councils or any fear of culture change. We are attempting day by day to engineer that change but we are fighting against a resource tide that has been ebbing. That is the fundamental problem we have faced.

We are open to improving the situation. I very specifically take the point the Senator has made about those in more marginalised communities finding it an awful lot more difficult to access the pretty complex and arcane structures we put in place. That is precisely why it is in the school context that problems should be addressed.

On the charter Bill, it would be ruinous if each school was required to reinvent the wheel, as my colleague has said, on foot of guidelines issued by the Minister. There must be some standardisation here. Only then will we get consistency and fairness and the reassurance for parents that there is consistency and fairness.