Feargal Quinn (Independent)

If it is included, I apologise. I read the amendment but may not have read the later part of it on the next page. Perhaps that is where I made my mistake. If that is so, I look forward to hearing the Minister's contribution on it.

Until fairly recently it was a novelty for a primary school to have a pupil from abroad. The challenge facing us is to adapt our system to suit that circumstance. The biggest challenge we face on immigration is the task of integrating these newcomers into Irish society. On the one hand, we must fully respect their culture and religious heritage and, on the other hand, ensure that those people who come to live among us are fully equipped to play a meaningful role as members of the society into which they have come.

The first element of that, above everything else, is that they should learn to speak English but that will not happen to them if they learn it from their friends. We must ensure that they learn to speak English correctly because if they do not they risk falling behind in everything they learn. There is also the risk that when they leave school they will be unable to play a part in our society. That will not happen by accident. It will happen only if the Government and the Minister allocate the resources to recognise that a very large number of newcomers into our society are pupils in our schools. As far as I am aware, nobody in education or elsewhere is taking responsibility for integrating those newcomers, whom we need so badly, into our society. We have not taken the first steps in that regard and the first steps must be taken in education.

I was interested to hear Senator Norris talk about the school pupils who referred to strangers to our country as "mates". We know we can succeed in this but it will not happen if these people do not learn English early and if we do not allocate the resources to provide for that. I urge the Minister to regard that as an urgent requirement. This is a nettle we must grasp. If we do not grasp it, we will face in the future something for which we will have been responsible, that is, encouraging people to come to our country, encouraging the children to go to school here and not giving them the education they need. They need a difference in emphasis, the emphasis on learning the English language as somebody who did not grow up with it. The Minister needs to allocate the necessary resources and I hope she will do so.