Mary Moran (Labour)

I would welcome a further debate as I have been anxious to speak since the beginning of this one. I am a former music teacher in a secondary school and I taught for almost 30 years. I also ask for music to be promoted, particularly, in Irish schools. If there is a cut to be made in a school today, music is the first to go. With the introduction of extra subjects some years ago to the curriculum, my own school, which had offered music to every student coming to first year, reduced it to being a choice subject offered for one period a week. Having taught and examined leaving and junior certificate music, I agree that with the change in our young people we need a more modern music curriculum. May we have a more integrated and informative course for junior and leaving certificate music?

In that school I founded an orchestra which had more than 100 students participating. It was all done on a voluntary basis.