Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Yes I bet he will. He should not impinge on me. I am happy about the hopeful note the Minister struck in respect of education. I am reluctant to call it the fourth level but that is the postgraduate, research and development, and thesis area in which we have fallen behind. We cannot emphasise enough the importance of research and development. We were far back in that field, but we have managed to advance. I was happy to hear the Minister wax enthusiastically in his most recent budget speech about the areas of education that would be necessary, in particular research and development — both applied and pure research. We need both as one is the basis for the other. It would be ridiculous to think we could have one without the other.

We need more money for incubation units in the ITs. Where would we be without our ITs which long ago forged the way forward? We would not have the numbers of young graduates we have in critical areas if we had not had the research and development units and incubation programmes in all our ITs, including Athlone Institute of Technology which is doing very well in the area.

The story of the BMW region and the spatial strategy is good. It is good the area got the core funding of 75% — a significant amount. It got this despite the fact the region was already forging ahead on a sound economic basis. I notice the gap is narrowing between the BMW and other regions. The unemployment rate is now 4.7% in the region compared with 4.3% for the rest of the country. There are other significant improvements also. The objective of the core funding and of EU policy was to help the region measure up.

Far-flung regions, such as the BMW region, suffered an economic, social and infrastructural deficit which could be made up by the application of the core funding from Europe and national funding. This has happened to a greater degree than I anticipated. The western assembly played its part as did the other various assemblies which make up the regional assembly. I am proud to belong to a part of the BMW region, although some people might say County Westmeath veers more towards the other regions. That is true, but we were happy the county was included as this was of enormous importance to it.

We do not trumpet enough the benefits of the NDP. We see the name on signs everywhere, in particular on road developments. Tomorrow, we will be cutting the sod near Moate for the Kilbeggan to Athlone stretch of the new motorway and we are delighted with this important development. We can whizz to wherever we like now. However, the investment in human capital is significant also and it is in this regard that education is so important. The Minister said in his speech that Ireland was an enthusiastic neophyte or newcomer in this area, but that it would now be to the forefront. We are and should be, because we are building on a tradition of education that is hundreds of years old. This is something that cannot be bought, but is a cultural embodiment of the kind of people we were. We may not have been a land of saints, but we were certainly a land of scholars.

We now pursue a new type of scholarly initiative, what can be called fourth level. This is a new concept but is worth pursuing. Young people doing their primary degrees now talk about doing postgraduate study. This was unknown in my time when the only postgraduate course we knew about was the higher diploma in education for those who wanted to teach. Nowadays, postgraduate studies involve higher echelons of economic and social activity, which I welcome.

The Minister's speech is a good landmark and I compliment whoever put it together as it is logical, clear and easily understood, unlike the sometimes turgid speeches we hear. The speech was logical and consequential, traced all that has happened and related the good news from the beginning to the end. This side of the House can certainly say much has been done and there is more to do. What has been done has been thought out and executed well. I welcome today's debate on this important matter.