Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have never agreed so much with trade unionists. My grandfather was president of the INTO in the 1950s and when one goes into the building on Parnell Square one can see his name on the board, Fionnain Breathnach. He was of a different political persuasion, but was a very interesting man.

As Ms Leydon said, the unions complement each other and everyone in this room will fully support what they are saying. They both articulated well points that we have tried to make. I thank all the unions' members and teachers for teaching our children and going that little bit further for them, especially when they have additional needs. Obviously, education is the cornerstone of our country. I am a member of Fianna Fáil and education is our number one priority. We do it really well, and that is one of the reasons I am still a member of Fianna Fáil. We always put the money into education. We introduced the free second level education and extended it to third level. We are now at another juncture and we have to make that extra leap and go that bit further for children with additional needs.

It relates a lot to the issue of childcare and figuring out what we do in that regard because it is important to capture these children at a very early age. The assessment piece is an important part of that. As a committee, we have much work to do. The Chairman is passionate about it and we hope we will be able to feed into many of the issues the witnesses have raised today, and have a vision for our children for the future and support the teachers. The teachers I have met are passionate about it. They want to help, they want the resources and, as they say, they have the time. We are entrusting them with our children every day. We need to support that.

I thank the witnesses. I did not go into the detail of all the statistics but I will print the speeches again. It was great to listen to both contributors and I thank them.