Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My goodness. The Minister said a number of times to Senator Warfield that she has been a Minister for only two years and has been doing all the work mentioned in that time. She has been a Minister for just short of two years. When I asked my first parliamentary question on this subject, which I believe was in July 2020, I got a general response. I was happy enough with that at the time because there had to be follow-up. Since then, I have asked about 12 or 15 parliamentary questions on this subject and have got the same general response. I have never got specifics on the timeline. When I read the Minister's opening statement today, I saw the same general information of the same standard that I received all the way through. The Minister says nobody has been more challenged by this than her but I have not seen any output on this. I have submitted Topical Issue debate questions, for which the Minister has not been available, and withdrew them until she was available. Therefore, if I ask a question seeking clarification, which I am entitled to do as an elected Member of the Oireachtas, it is because I am trying to get a more detailed answer. Perhaps I could get more detailed answers on the timeline, because it is extremely important.

Our frustration with the Department has been ongoing for some time now. We do not have dates for anything at this point. We have generalities. For example, the Minister's opening statement reads:

Preparation to update the senior cycle ... specification has commenced. The senior cycle development will now be charged with preparing a background paper.

When will that start? How long will it take? When will the background paper be published? What does that mean? How will that feed into the next stage? How long will that take? Specifically when will there be a programme that is available to be seen? The Minister says she has been in schools where she sees excellent examples, and we hear them too. However, we also hear from secondary school students who tell us they are not getting a certain level of education, so we see a mixed picture. What the committee and Members of the Oireachtas would like to see is actual output from the Department, actual content we can see, even on a private basis, such that the Department is available to invite us in and to say this is where we are and this is what we are doing. Everybody is clearly very interested in this. The work on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence has been ongoing for the complete period of this Government so far, and these are programme for Government commitments, but we have not seen any output. As for the actual work coming out of the junior cycle, the senior cycle and the primary cycle, in what academic year does the Minister for Education expect the programmes for each of those cycles to be commenced in schools?