Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

It was highly provocative of the Irish Aviation Authority to suspend certain air traffic controllers. The authority is responsible for pushing this matter to the limit.

Will the Leader make time available for a debate on the future of the vocational educational committees, VECs, with the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe? The Minister is doing an excellent job and makes himself available to discuss issues of this nature. Before a final decision is made, will the Leader invite the Minister to come before the House to discuss the role of the country's 33 VECs? The McCarthy report recommends that this number should be reduced to 22, while Deputy Brian Hayes of Fine Gael recommends that there should be even fewer. The latter is an extremely unhelpful suggestion, particularly if we are to convince the Minister to draw up plans to retain the existing VECs which have made a great contribution to rural areas and can certainly be of assistance during this time of economic difficulty when there is a need to create alternative employment opportunities and retrain people. I strongly recommend that the existing 33 VECs be retained because change for change's sake is not necessary. The amalgamations and rationalisations carried out to date, including that which led to the establishment of the HSE, have proved unsuccessful. I appeal to the Leader to request that the Minister for Education and Science come before the House in the next two to three weeks in order that we might engage in a full debate on this issue.