Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I endorse the call by Senator Quinn for a debate on the report on primary teaching. The INTO was very quick out of the traps. Anybody who has a cushy experience of involvement with primary education would say there are many fine teachers in the profession but there are also many who should not be involved in the teaching profession. All the report does is underline that. It is not good enough, particularly in the context of a referendum which gives paramount importance to the position of our children, that we should allow a situation, purely for industrial relations purposes, where inadequate teachers are allowed continue in the profession. Neither is it fair to themselves, because of the stress and strain it imposes on them, if they are not performing. In every school there is a small number who have chosen the wrong career path and there should be a mechanism for correcting that in the interests of the education of children.

Given the commencement of talks between the consultants and the HSE today, I am surprised this item has not been raised on the Order of Business. The health services have been blighted with vested interests over many decades. I hope the seriousness with which the Minister has laid out her stall on this matter will be followed through. I hope there will be no half-way houses or compromises. The bad practices that are in the consultants contract must be eradicated. The entire health service should be geared primarily and absolutely towards the health of the people and the patients who use that service. Obviously those who work in it have a responsibility in that regard. It is appalling to hear well paid consultants and equally well paid representatives of those consultants prevaricate over a long period. I know from their comments today that they intend to delay what would be the inevitable. I would like to think this House would speak with one voice in support of a Minister who, perhaps, has been the first to show courage in this regard. If she succeeds, and I certainly hope so, other Ministers will take on vested interests within the parameters of their own portfolios.