Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann:

—regrets that the Government has failed to implement fully its promise to reduce primary school class sizes to 20:1 for under nine year olds;

—regrets that the Minister has procrastinated so long in announcing her much-heralded and long-awaited initiative on disadvantaged schools and pupils and urges her to outline the details now;

—demands that the Government give special weighting and provision to those schools and classes with significant numbers of "newcomer" pupils, from other countries and cultures, on their rolls;

—mar, gur scannallach an rud nach bhfuil an pupil-teacher ratio céanna ag scoileanna sa Ghaeltacht is atá ag Gaelscoileanna, ná bhfuil teacht ar na fearaistí ná na leabhair Gaolanna chun an teanga a mhúineadh agus mar nach bhfuil aon aithint tugtha don uimhir mhór eachtrannach gan Béarla ná Gaeilge acu atá i scoileanna Gaeltachta faoi láthair, glaonn Seanad Éireann ar an Rialtas acmhainní a infheistiú láithreach i scoileanna Gaeltachta chun múinteoirí sa bhreis a chur ar fáil dóibh, chun aonad curaclaim a bhunú a sholáthróidh fearaistí agus téacsanna Gaeilge dóibh, agus chun tacaíocht ar leith a thabhairt do na scoileanna Gaeltachta sin a bhfuil líon mór eachtrannach ar a rollaí;

—in order to meet the needs of pupils with special needs, calls for the establishment of provision for dual enrolment and part-time enrolment in special and mainstream schools and proposes the use of outreach teaching from special schools to mainstream and the "in reach" of staff from mainstream, first and second level schools, to special schools by the creation of formal clusters or federations of schools;

—urges the Government to ensure adequate resources to meet the implementation of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act;

—urges that the Minister supports those proposals at the national partnership talks which will ensure that teachers will be adequately and fairly rewarded for the challenging and responsible work which they undertake, and demands in particular that the anomaly which depresses the allowance for primary school principals in comparison with their post primary colleagues be eliminated immediately; and

—resolves to support fully the Minister in her attempts to implement the proposals in this motion.

I welcome the Minister for Education and Science to the House and thank her for coming to hear my words of wisdom. There is much to be learned. I wish to make some initial points to change matters from the normal course of events. I read the typical Government amendment to my superb motion. I examined it closely and I cannot——