Luke Fagan:

I overheard Senator Clonan say that he served in the Army, and I first want to thank him for everything he has done.

I go to a single-sex school. It is an all-boys school. There is a primary school attached to our school. The process is that you will go to that primary school, then to our secondary school and then to whatever third level you choose. Recently, the primary school became co-educational, so the school started catering to both boys and girls. That poses a real threat to our secondary school, which is now also planning to become co-educational. This may not only be because the primary school became co-educational. It may also be because of what the Senator said, which is that when a student goes to college it may be the first time they are exposed to co-educational spaces where they are in a mix of the two genders, men and women. You will be more used to it at second level than primary level. This is not an excuse or anything but if you were to integrate early so that there was not this shock at third level, it might lower that a bit. I am not saying that is the out-and-out resolution to it. There are probably better solutions that could solve it but having a single-sex school and going straight into a co-educational school is a bad idea. I have seen in other areas around Ireland in particular that there has been an increase in co-educational schools. That would give a hand to that issue.