Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I join Senators Fitzgerald and O'Toole in welcoming the inquiry into the barbaric practice of symphysiotomies. As a midwife and nurse, I am in a position to state such procedures should not have been carried out at the time at which they were. It is only correct that there should be a full scale inquiry into why such procedures were carried out.

It has been a tempestuous few weeks in the world of politics. We have seen conduct unbecoming of Ministers both inside and outside the Houses. There has also been bickering and squabbling among Deputies and Senators. Such behaviour does not lend itself to progress being made at a time when the country is going to rack and ruin. It was alarming to watch "The Frontline" with Pat Kenny on Monday night on which so many young people displayed such disaffection with the political process. I have no doubt that many in the audience were representative of their peers. There is not that much wrong with the political process, it is the way it is being operated that is the problem. There has been enough evidence of this since Christmas. It is, therefore, no wonder that so many young people have such little regard for politics.

At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health and Children yesterday I saw another side to how young people approached politics. Representatives from Dáil na nÓg provided members of the committee with reasoned and articulate views on some of the issues they rightly believed politicians should be in a position to address. One of these issues is the subject of sex education which I have taught in many schools in the south-east region. One of the reasons for this is that teachers find it difficult to deal with the subject and then return to teaching their normal subjects. Those from Dáil na nÓg informed the committee that many pupils also had a difficulty with the subject. Furthermore, they stated there was unequal access to sex education and that there was no standardised approach to the teaching of the subject. In 2007 the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Mary Hanafin, launched a report on relationships and sexuality education, RSE, and stated that up to 60% of schools had no proper programme for the teaching of the subject. Following all the public debate on the issue which dates back decades, it is ridiculous that such a simple matter cannot be addressed. In such circumstances, I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Education and Science to come before the House in order that we might commence the process of dealing properly with this matter which is particularly important to young people.

That brings me back to where I started. One of the messages communicated on "The Frontline" is that people are frustrated by political inaction, especially in the context of particular issues and how they relate to them. This is a matter on which politicians must show that they can be positive and proactive. That might lead to young people having more faith in what we do.

The final matter to which I wish to refer relates to the recruitment embargo, bed closures and the curtailment of services. The embargo is rendering the health service incapable of meeting the needs of the general public and leading to massive overcrowding in accident and emergency departments and long waiting lists. A further 2,000 beds will be closed this year and some 1,600 more posts will be lost. The embargo is having a particularly detrimental effect on mental health services. Caroline McGrath, director of the Irish Mental Health Coalition, has serious reservations about a Government policy which is a crude and brutal instrument and crippling the Government's own reform programme, namely, A Vision for Change. According to figures released by the HSE, 719 posts have been lost in mental health services in the past 14 months. Any plan for reform must outline who is doing what, how they are doing it and when.