Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The best place for parents to get information is in their local school. That is as it should be. That is why the relationship between schools and parents is so important. The regional offices serve to make contact with people. The proposals outlined in that forum are wide ranging. They include regional structures with relative autonomy, authority, budgetary control, responsibility for the identification of local and regional educational needs and strategic planning for all of that. The suggestion is that these powers would all be moved from the Department of Education and Science. I fundamentally disagree with this proposal.

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