Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Conway-Walsh spoke on open access to college. She needs to think that through. I do not agree with it. It would create mayhem overnight. We do not have the capacity to do that, nor is it necessarily the right thing to do. We need to have a wide provision over time so people can access courses, modules and so on to take the urgency out of the leaving cert and to remove the idea that it is the be-all and end-all. We need to create a roadmap for young people so there is a route to where they want to go, through a variety of colleges of further and higher education and modular-based education. That is the approach we need.

I met with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science recently on the Cassells report. It has been given active consideration by the Minister and he is engaging with other Ministers on how we roll that out and deal with it. There are Estimates and budgetary contexts to that.

On Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire, I do not believe it is because of the Government or the Department of Education over the past 20-odd years. Twenty is on my mind today. It is not all blink and bluff. There were genuine issues there. I will ask for the report on that from the Department's building unit and come back to the Deputy on it.

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