Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

These Ministers must face up to their responsibilities. Those of us whose children attend school can see that boards of management, parents and teachers do an excellent job. Our children come home and try to use Irish words they have learned in school. These teachers do more to help the Irish language than the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and his legislation requiring every piece of local authority documentation to be published in Irish. If this money was redirected into schools, it would make a major contribution to education. In the same way, children recognise recycling symbols and know what can and cannot be recycled because they are learning about life in our schools. We should promote and foster this.

It is time for this Government to have a greater vision of what it intends to do for the future, particularly in respect of education. The Minister's response to this motion is another example of the tripe the Government constantly produces, which focuses solely on the amount of money it has spent. There is no sense of balance, whether good accounting practices have been used or whether value for money has been achieved. The Government simply throws out figures and thinks it can get by but that day is long gone. The Government has wasted the resources given to it over the past nine years, a state of affairs which will come back to haunt it. The Government should show it has a vision for the future of schools and stop forcing children with special needs to go to court to get anything out of it. I receive numerous letters complaining about the Government's unhelpful attitude to children with special needs and how it does practically nothing for them.

It is time for the Government to face up to its responsibilities, rather than give soft-focus interviews when new school extensions are opened. Ministers should do what they are charged by the electorate to do, namely, act as competent managers of Departments, show vision for the future and look after children who will only spend a very short time in our schools. I hope the Minister takes this message away from this debate and refrains from cat calling across the House in respect of comments made about individual schools or policy. The Government should acknowledge it has failed to achieve certain things and has fallen way behind in certain areas. It should give us a vision for the future or, at least, one that will suffice until next year, when we can possibly provide one for it.

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