Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

On at least 30 occasions in the past 12 months, I stated publicly that our education system owes a huge debt of gratitude to all teacher, past and present, for the education system. That is not publicised that often, but I have the records and can stand over it. I have nothing but the height of regard for teachers. I accept that the vast majority of teachers do a good job. Like politicians, they are not all perfect and the sooner we face that reality the better.

I have no desire to decide on the structure of the teacher union conferences. Traditionally and probably for as long as the unions are in existence, the Minister for Education and Science has had a slot to address the conferences. I merely requested that the slot be used in a different way and that, instead of the President or the General Secretary of the union making a speech which may or may not have referred to the points raised by the Minister in his preceding speech, there would be dialogue and greater engagement and communication. In my first letter, I suggested that a "yes" style format would be the way to do that, but two of the unions rejected that out of hand. Perhaps they adopted Deputy Finian McGrath's approach to this, that nobody would tell them anything. I reiterate that I made a request and I did not tell anybody to do something.

One union believed it was important that the Minister should be present and that it should discuss how it might accommodate a change. It had no difficulty with it and we have agreed that change. The two other unions were approached subsequently and some discussion took place with one union on the format agreed with the other union. The executive of the other union will meet on Thursday, so the position is not finally decided.

The independence of trade unions is not under threat from me. As the Deputy stated, we live in a democratic society and, as an elected represented of the people, I have a democratic right to ask the unions to do things in a different way to have greater engagement and a more productive session. I want to attend the teacher union conferences to state my views and listen to their views. There seems to be some difficulty in moving away from the traditional format that generates more heat than light. My door is still open. I have asked both unions if they would indicate whether they intend to engage as unions in the "yes" process. I have indicated to both that I would like to know that before we finalise discussions, but that is not a precondition and the unions can say no if they wish.

If anybody can point out a specific instance where I engaged in teacher bashing, I would be delighted to see it. I have never said anything derogatory about teaching or the teaching profession. I dedicated the EU Presidency to it. I will launch a book dedicated to learning and teaching in this country, which is a mark of my esteem for teachers. As I must take a stand on union matters, there has been a tendency to paint that as teacher bashing.

I was not aware of the Scottish example to which the Deputy referred, but I am aware that, at one of the "yes" meetings, someone spoke of the decline in Welsh rugby and I had it checked out. A Welshman I met on Saturday confirmed that the decline in Welsh rugby over time could be traced to a lack of——

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