John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I echo the sentiments of my colleagues who expressed regret about the announcement by the Minister for Education and Science on the reneging of the commitment to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio in national schools. I want to emphasise the area of special needs in education. This is an area on which we had an announcement yesterday, yet we are all familiar with schools throughout the country on which that announcement will not have an effect in terms of the granting of special needs assistants.

My question relates to a motion which Senator Kenneally tabled for the Adjournment this evening regarding the provision of cancer treatment services throughout the country. Now that we have a new Minister for Health and Children, it would be apt to ask her views on the whole area of cancer treatment. Her predecessor adopted a head in the sand approach to the matter. I am talking particularly about the provision of facilities in the regions. There is not a family in the country that has not been affected in one way or another by cancer. I attended a meeting last night about that issue where it was highlighted that in a previous era, a former Minister for Health, the late Dr. Noel Browne, took stringent action to eliminate TB yet in the post-Celtic tiger era——