Mr. Dermot Carney:

We have had members of the Art Teachers' Association of Ireland on our committee. We have a gap at present and we will have one fairly soon again. As an ex-member, I am always in close touch with the association.

With regard to STEAM and STEM, I believe everybody in the room is on the same page on that. The House of Representatives in the US produced a policy in 2013 which stated that the arts had to be brought into STEM for the purpose of innovation in schools. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said something similar to the European Parliament in 2012 or 2013. We can see on the ground that it is a must. There is a huge amount of work being done in this area and much is still to be done on the transfer from the arts to other areas within the school. To make a personal comment, people talk repeatedly about creativity. I was an art teacher for many years and it was not just about creativity. I wanted students to leave with a knowledge and love of the arts and to ensure they had visual literacy. They were not all creative, and to pick every policy by taking it out of creativity does not always work. However, that is not to take it from the science area. In the schools in which I was a principal, there was fantastic creativity in the woodwork department and all across the school.

The Deputy referred to the national strategy. People should be talking to the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, of approximately 730 schools, as part of the process for anything that is done in that area. Whatever way that goes, they should talk to the leaders of the schools. As I have said previously, the arts are part of the curriculum in primary schools. In second level schools, when one sits down to timetable - I have done it and so has Ms O'Brien - the arts are not everywhere and not everybody is going to be involved. One must get the leaders of the second level schools to work with one. Talk to them.