Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister for her lengthy reply. I accept there has been more investment in this area, but we are coming from a low base. Six years after the publication of the White Paper, we still await progress on some fundamental issues. The national adult learning council, NALC, was set up following a recommendation of the White Paper but for some reason was set aside. Does the Minister accept there is need for clear leadership in this sector? Does she propose to recall NALC? Many of its board members were not even interviewed prior to its disbandment.

With regard to the literacy programme, yesterday the deaf community launched a week of events on the Irish sign language. Literacy arose as an issue at the launch of one of yesterday's events, Signing on and Signing out, the report of which pointed out that in terms of the deaf community as a whole the majority of deaf adults have only the same literacy skills as an eight year old. Unfortunately, this is the base we come from. It was also pointed out that people do not make progress in terms of the leaving and junior certificate. These are difficulties for this sector of the community.

The OECD report indicated that 500,000 Irish adults score on the lowest literacy level. Does the Minister accept that we need a new literacy survey to get an accurate picture of the number of adults with literacy problems and of how effectively they are being dealt with?

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