Mr. Paul Hannigan:

I will address the access issue. When I went back to work in Letterkenny in the late 1990s the completion rate for the leaving certificate in County Donegal was around 75%. It is now well over 90%, one of the highest rates in the country. A lot of that improvement was due to the fact that parents who had left school early were making sure that their children would not do the same. There was a change in culture and a recognition of the power of education and what it can do for people. Opportunities were created by higher education after that. The main focus was on keeping people in school, finishing their qualifications, getting through and moving onto the next stage. Perhaps elements of Northern Ireland are in that development stage at the moment. That is all I can offer in terms of consideration on that.

I am sure that regionally completion rates are very high in certain areas of Northern Ireland, but not in others. It is a case of recognising the power of education, what it can do for people and the opportunities it creates subsequently. That is well learned in a lot of parts of the Republic at the moment and has led to very high completion rates at second level and very high transfer rates into higher education.