Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister for Education and Science to the House and thank the Leader for arranging this debate on foot of our learning last week of the report's launch. The method by which many people learned about the report rang alarm bells and, despite the Minister's best efforts to aver otherwise, most people are clear in their minds that the leaking of the report to certain sections of the media was not the right way to present it to the partners in education. It must be said that many aspects of the report suggest it was rushed. A leagan Gaeilge of the report is not yet available. Although Members have been told that the legislation introduced by the Minister's colleague means that all reports are translated instantly and simultaneously presented trí leagan Gaeilge, this has not happened.

There are grounds for at least being suspicious in this regard. Most importantly, both the Minister's address and the report completely avoid any mention of class size and the difficulties faced by many of the students who were assessed. The students were teaching in class sizes that were far larger than the great aspiration to which the Minister referred previously, namely, having younger children below nine in classes of less than 20 pupils. The Minister stated this was simply a pious aspiration.