Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome what has been said today. I hope this brings an end to it. We will be keenly looking out for the delegation orders as, I imagine, will the Minister of State, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, and she will be right to do so. Certainly, we support that.

I appeal to the Minister to consider the position of the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan. He has an important role in research in the other Department but I am referring to skills and training. I am concerned at the idea that he has to deal with school transport as well. That is going to take up a good deal of his time over the summer, in particular. In fairness, the Minister of State deals with representations and he cannot change the rules unless he gets a budget or whatever. He will spend a great deal of time dealing with that. Is there someone else who could do that? It is an important job. It is a live issue in rural Ireland and, finally, it has become live in the Fine Gael party too, or so we read in the media. Someone else who could put a little more time into that should be appointed to allow the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, to focus on his important responsibilities.

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