Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have to be honest. That is a shocking response. It is a case of "Pass the buck; it has nothing to do with us."

It is a pity the senior Minister is not here. As I said, this is also about arts and culture and the commitment of the Government to ensure access for young people to those things. The Minister said the school is a private entity. It is a not-for-profit registered charity that has the principal of the school on its board. This is, therefore, a community service for students and young people to access music.

I ask the Minister of State to think, for a moment, what the world would be like without music. I am sure he enjoys music. It makes the world a better place. How does he think music gets produced? It is because somebody teaches people how to play musical instruments and learn about music. We need more access to it and the Government has committed to give access to all young people and students in a collaboration between the Department of arts, the Department of Education and local authorities. All of this is mentioned in the programme for Government.

The programme for Government states that the Government will "Foster further collaboration between local authorities and local arts organisations through Creative Communities" and work with the Department of Education to expand access to the arts. A school closes, with 40 people, some of whom have been working there for decades, losing their jobs with a week's notice, and the Minister of State says it has nothing to do with the Government. Seriously, the Minister of State should have a bit of respect for people who are shocked and upset that they have lost their jobs. He should show some commitment to the arts, young people, music, the community that will be hit by this and the programme for Government.

I appeal to the Minister of State not to give me a tick-box, "it has nothing to do with us" response. I ask for an intervention for the community, the students and the workers who are being treated inexplicably and to look beneath the bonnet of this because there is no reason to believe there is any major financial difficulty with the school. It was self-financing.

I ask the Minister of State to do better than that. If he does not know the answers, will he bring the matter upstairs to the Ministers for arts, Education and the local government? The workers' rights issues involved also bring in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

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