Joe O'Toole (Independent)

In my 20 years as a Senator the Leader's office has never worked so efficiently as it does now. Anything I say is no criticism of the Leader. We normally receive notification of changes to the Order of Business but did not receive any such notification yesterday. An Independent Member was present when the announcement was made in the House but understood that an e-mail would be sent to inform us of the change. The Leader was under the same pressure as everyone else. I checked my e-mail at 8.30 p.m. and there was no notification. Consequently, some Independent Members were not present. I would have supported the Bill but the issue concerns Independent Members making a contribution, about which we are diligent. I regret that we did not have formal notification of the change to the Order of Business. It was an embarrassment to Independent Members.

Senators Ulick Burke and Quinn raised the report on teacher education during the week. We need a debate on this. It was a cheap, nasty trick by the Minister to deflect attention from an issue that was causing pressure. This is a vulnerable group of young teachers who are left without a voice to speak for them. I reassure the House that it may have trust and confidence in those young students because this was not a random selection, nor was the survey carried out using normal survey rules. It was a group of 140 selected by college authorities to fulfil a remit from the Department of Education and Science. No blame attaches to them and we cannot make a judgment based on this. We need a debate so that people understand that after graduation students spend a year under the control of the inspectorate in order to develop. The Leader and I have had many rows wearing different hats but we fought face to face without placing blame on vulnerable people who had no voice.

I received two photographs yesterday of road signposts in County Galway. These show the bilingual names of places such as Spiddal -An Spidéal and Carraroe-An Cheathrú Rua in County Galway. The Minister is so quick and eager to put the boot into people in Dingle-Daingean Uí Chúis but has a different set of rules in his own constituency. It is appalling. The position of people in Dingle has been articulated in a plebiscite and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government supports them. The Government should deal with this in fair way. It is quite invidious discrimination against Dingle. It is wrong and should be corrected.