Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Government is proud of being a reforming Government in education. My predecessor, Deputy Quinn, achieved a high level of reform during his time as Minister. He, like me, has been disappointed with the progress in this area. There has been more reform in education during the past four or five years than in the preceding decades. It is difficult to reform a system that has been developed in a certain way, and even the Deputy acknowledged that we would not start from here. It would be ideal if we could found the system from the beginning, given that it is so denominationally governed in terms of school patronage and this does not reflect the population as it is now. I want to move on it. It will be productive to meet the bishops in particular and the other patrons, and we will try to get some more energy and speed into the process.

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