Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I will be brief, as I have already said what I wanted to say on the issue. I thank Deputy McConalogue for his positive views on the moves I have made. I believe we need to see movement from the teacher unions and hope that through the re-engagement of Mr. Travers, we will be able to avoid a further strike that does not serve any purpose.

At all times, the focus of the Department, myself, my predecessor and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, which made the recommendations, is in the interest of students to ensure we give them the opportunity to be assessed on a variety of skills, competences and intelligence, not just those that are measured in an exam at the end of a three year cycle. The sooner we can get on with this and get working on implementing the curriculum, the better. As the Deputy said, we have started with English, but the sooner we get beyond this impasse, the better for everybody concerned.

It is important to realise that some of the other partners in education, particularly parents at post-primary level are strongly in favour of this change taking place. The same is true for the Irish Second-Level Students Union. We must be cognisant of these partners and for that reason, the Department will meet with them in parallel with the talks Mr. Travers is having with the teacher unions in which we hope he will make progress.