Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I thank the Senator for his time. The House may know that I am conducting an Oireachtas study on early school leaving and one of the target groups that we are looking at is the prison population. We interviewed two men and two women in their 20s, so it is not that long since they were in primary and secondary school. There were no surprises as illiteracy and sexual abuse were the causes, in the main, of their educational failure. This comes on the back of the Ryan report and the fact that a third of our kids in disadvantaged areas are still not learning to read and write.

I call on the Leader to facilitate a debate with the Ministers for Education and Science and Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the causes of crime and how they relate to illiteracy and child abuse.