Sean Barrett (Independent)

I thank the Minister of State. I believe we have gone completely the wrong way. The important part is the lecture hall, not the quality office. I do not know what the quality office is supposed to do in each place; it is irrelevant. I heard a description of one of the quality offices recently as a self-licking ice-cream. It is an múinteoir who is the important here. That is what counts. One can have hundreds of bureaucrats counting things outside but what happens in the class is what counts. Of course, the bureaucrats will recommend more layers of bureaucracy, but this is a blatant waste of money and a straitjacket for the future, that all new courses are to be validated by somebody who will have no expertise in the subject and a quality officer who does not know what it is about. This was a fad in education which should be dispensed with, like other fads, and get back to putting the money into education. Teachers are being taken out of small schools and also special needs assistants to set up quality offices and this kind of nonsense. The Minister of State has been very patient and I promise not to engage in any more hyperbole on the issue. It is unnecessary and dangerous for the future. We will go on giving the lectures but the bureaucrats will be reading the legislation and extending their powers and meddling more in the actual productive and working part of Irish education. That is the danger.