Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I was very conscious that when a process like this has been undertaken, which involved so many members of the public, it would be important for it to feed into policy making. The final report is not available and we do not even have preliminary findings from the process but what we have is the valuable views of the Irish public on education, which is the survey that has been published. That provides us with useful information on a range of subjects which I have often dipped into, even recently. Deputies will be aware that at the time the process took place one of the major issues for schools was the area of special needs, and that tended to dominate some of the meetings at the time. Much of that has since been addressed.

The overall cost arising from the public consultation process is €760,142, which covers printing, launching, advice, the setting up meetings etc., the Educational Research Centre for its secretariat and the cost of the survey. Because the report came from an eminent group of independent trustees, including people such as Mary Davis, Dr. Garret FitzGerald etc., and working through the Educational Research Centre, it was out of our hands, but now that that process is almost complete, I look forward to publishing the report in the new year.

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