Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

Ba mhaith liom ceist a chur ar an gCeannaire, cén uair a bheidh an díospóireacht againn ar chúrsaí na Gaeltachta agus cúrsaí Gaeilge sa tír seo? D'iarr mé go mbeadh an díospóireacht againn mar pháirt de Sheachtain na Gaeilge. Tá Seachtain na Gaeilge thart. I ask the Leader to facilitate that debate. When I contacted the Minister's office he was willing to come here during Seachtain na Gaeilge to discuss the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It is a missed opportunity. I ask the Leader to deal with that as soon as possible, considering the statistics on the problems the Irish language faces, which I have gone over time and again in this Chamber.

I repeat a call I made before the recess about the pharmacy dispute and the need for the Minister for Health and Children to outline to this Chamber the contingency she will put in place as a result of the pharmacies withdrawing from the contracts with effect from 1 May. When the Minister was here before and in answering questions of Deputies and Senators she said only a handful of pharmacies will withdraw. We now know the reality. In Donegal 40 out of 51 will withdraw from the scheme from 1 May. The figures in Mayo are similar and I believe the trend will continue to emerge throughout the country in the time ahead. People and patients are concerned about where they will get their medicine on 1 and 2 May. We need the Minister to outline her plan and we need to tease that out.

We need a real debate on education and its funding. As other Senators have said, we have just come off the back of the education conference that took place over Easter week. The one clear message from that conference is that we cannot provide a world class education service on a shoestring. This Government is trying to do that and we see the evidence in overcrowded classrooms, the difficulty of fund-raising and funding for the running costs of schools and the issue of dilapidated buildings. We have a serious crisis in education if we want to achieve the type of education standard I would like to see. We need that debate.

I am conscious that I am the only Senator who will be publicly voting "No" to the Lisbon treaty.