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

I thank the Minister of State for being here. When the announcement was made that the Department of Education of Skills was to be split up and that the Department in which the Minister of State now serves was to be established, I was not convinced. I did not make any public comment at the time because I was interested to see how it would work out. I am, however, genuinely enthused as to how it has worked out. It was a good move. We are now putting an emphasis on this aspect of education, which was previously swamped in the larger Department. The traditional Department of Education can now focus on the primary and secondary sectors and on other bits under its remit while we can speak to the Minister, Deputy Harris, and to the Minister of State regarding this specific area. I believe he acknowledged in his contribution that a number of policy areas had been allowed to drag and had not really been tackled. The funding issue is central to that.

While I appreciate the reason we are here, I might ask the Minister of State a general question or probe him a little bit more. He has mentioned the Cassells report. Did he say that it had gone to the European Commission?