Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity of speaking on this matter again; I spoke on it last June.

I will take up from where Deputy Broughan finished. Despite the robust and sometimes polemical comments, there is cross-party agreement on the issues with which we need to deal. Unfortunately, my constituency has been in the news probably more than most because of the raft of crimes that have been committed over the past long number of years. I spent 30 years teaching. Deputy Broughan has been teaching. Our constituencies neighbour each other. Unfortunately, the numbers of young people with whom I have come in contact over the years who have ended up in prison — I end up visiting, helping their parents, helping their siblings etc. — is far beyond that which I regard as being acceptable.

This morning, before I came here, I called into a school to discuss the learning support it is receiving from the Department of Education and Science and to assure the school that such support would be increased. Yesterday, I visited a school in my area which justified my belief that prevention is better than cure because, despite being one of the most deprived in the country, it managed to achieve an attendance rate of 91% by means of the school completion programme, targeted measures such as breakfast and after school clubs and the provision of the facilities noted by Deputy Broughan and me. To be fair, these facilities are slowly being delivered.

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