Joe O'Toole (Independent)

We raised the issue of decentralisation in this House yesterday with the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon. The House will be pleased to hear that his position changed somewhat on "Morning Ireland" this morning when he explained why we were outvoted in the finance committee when we sought to have a debate on decentralisation, which was warmly supported by the Fianna Fáil chair of the committee. Suddenly the whip came from on high when a Deputy from one of the Government parties was afraid the number of Bus Éireann employees was lower than the number of people who would be transferred to the middle of his constituency in Mitchelstown. He was afraid that Senator Bradford and others might embarrass him with the figures so a debate on the issue prior to the election was refused. I understand they are now prepared to have a debate. It would be helpful to have an open debate on the issue in order to stop the Government messing up another good idea. Decentralisation is a good idea, so we should not mess up the implementation process.

Two weeks ago, I raised the issue of the report of the Mahon tribunal which outlined clear means to reduce to a couple of years the potential 15 years of hearings and to dispose of the matter. This could be done by giving the tribunals the authority to decide whether to pursue publicly and openly examinations of certain aspects required under the terms of reference. They need to be able to decide it is not worth wasting time going down a particular track and to move on to the serious issue. This is an example of where politicians could do something the general public would understand. No one would object to what is being proposed because it is in everyone's interest. It would save money for the State, get the tribunals to focus on the real issues and they would get their business finished in a couple of years rather than 11 or 15 years.

Will the Leader cast her mind back to 1987 when she was made Minister for Education? At the time she struggled to deal with a huge number of cuts. One of the things that bothered her at the time was that primary schools were being forced to use general purpose rooms and gyms for classrooms. In recent weeks, the House has debated issues of obesity, alcohol and substance abuse and tobacco awareness. However, we are preventing schools from teaching the curriculum. We are denying them access to physical education, which they badly need. While we are still picking up the pieces in regard to the funding of GP rooms in schools, it would be a serious error to turn the clock back on this issue.