Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I share Senators' outrage about the storming of an aid boat on its way to Gaza yesterday. I ask the Leader where is the United Nations in all of this. What sanctions are being used to penalise such action? I would like to hear the Minister for Foreign Affairs speak about the issue.

I have two other requests to make of the Leader, both to do with the Minister for Education and Skills. I ask the Leader to arrange a full debate on the need for a new, reformed second level education system, a system that would serve all our children. A report on early school leaving, for which I was a rapporteur, was published last week and I thank the Leader for placing it on the Order Paper. It has found that one in six of our children are leaving school early, before the leaving certificate. A report published yesterday by the National Educational Welfare Board compiled by Mr. David Millar of the Educational Research Centre shows that in disadvantaged schools one quarter of the children are absent for more than 20 days a year. There are 16,000 expulsions every year, with one tenth taking place in disadvantaged schools. Children cannot learn when they are not in school and when they are, they are not learning either. The system which is exam-driven and aimed at obtaining the maximum number of points does not suit them. I would like a full debate to be arranged on the issue.

I have a second question which I would like the Leader to put to the Minister for Education and Skills. Will the new Minister, the Tánaiste, protect education at the Cabinet table? Today I have heard an account of a school in Galway city — this is being replicated across the country — in which foreign national children have lost their English language teachers because of new rules. These kids will not get the test scores required to enable them to move to mainstream education. They will fail again at second level. We are just replicating the problem. Is the Minister aware of this? It was she who brought forward the new rules. Yesterday a young man came to my office crying because his only hope was the back to education allowance. His maintenance grant has been cut and he is unemployed. What will the Minister do? Will she protect education?