Cecilia Keaveney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the 4,000 cultural diversity packs given to primary schools this week to help overcome the idea of segregation and to promote integration. This is linked to class sizes, with 1,800 primary school teachers just teaching English to non-national children trying to integrate in our primary schools. This is putting pressure on existing resources.

I also welcome the library moneys given by the Minister to schools. On the question of whether the de Valera book should be sent to schools, we are trying to promote student interest in politics. Some two-thirds of people polled know nothing about the EU treaty. Not only should we dispense library money and many kinds of books we must examine how to get children to read material relevant to their future and how to make this material relevant to them. We could debate how to make politics more relevant to younger people.

Many schools have done good work on the green schools initiative. Much support is given to domestic homes for wood chip boilers. Many schools are considering installing a wind turbine to reduce energy costs. There is a great deal we could do in terms of promoting, in a positive fashion, the work of schools through our policies on the green agenda. That matter might be worthy of a debate at some stage.

The concept of regional development is close to my heart. This is a matter about which we must have a debate. The north west is pandered to by people discussing developing cross-Border access. At the most recent meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council at which transport was discussed, the Dublin-Derry train service was again ignored. The meeting to which I refer concentrated only on the Dublin to Belfast train service. I was disappointed and disillusioned earlier when I received a letter from Iarnród Éireann, via the Minister, indicating that it still has no real interest in developing a Dublin-Derry train service.

If we are serious about North-South co-operation, INTERREG funding and funding for projects in locations where there is more than one Government involved, we should engage in a debate on true North-South co-operation by encouraging our northern counterparts, who are responsible for the current lack of progress, to promote an all-Ireland train service. In that context, there is a need to invest in the Derry to Coleraine section of the Derry-Dublin line. Colleagues do not realise that it is possible to travel by train from Dublin to Derry. The difficulty, however, is that there has been such a lack of political will to upgrade the line, particularly that section to which I refer, that there are not enough passing points to make the line a reality. That is all that is involved.

It is lovely that we are upgrading the Dublin-Belfast line on a continual basis.