Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I concur with others that this is a big departure, devolving 33 VECs into 16. On being at this point and having reached such an amount of agreement, bar requests for a few amendments, I say, "Well done."

I was formerly the chair of County Galway VEC and it was an eye-opener. The reason it was an eye-opener is that VECs aim to provide education for all. Having been in the primary sector and in the teacher education sector and having gone to voluntary education schools, I had never encountered the VEC sector until I ended up as a member, and as the Chair, of a VEC. That is why this must not be the Cinderella. If it meets the education-for-all remit, we must honour it with the appropriate funding.

My experience of the VEC is that it had the potential to pick up all of those who were lost along the way, such as through the adult literacy and numeracy sector. Of course, we must never let that go. Let us face it, yesterday we sat in here with the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Fitzgerald, and we spoke about the need for early intervention. In the case of every ill in society, be it crime, dropouts or early school leaving, if we had invested early we would have caught them, but we do not live in an ideal society or a utopia, and we must have the provision at the other end as well. I want to acknowledge that up-front.

I have been asked by County Galway VEC to bring this to the attention of the Minister. I accept that the Minister may have conceded this but perhaps he would clarify it for me. Where three VECs are to be amalgamated to form a new ETB, the local authority representation on the newly-formed board should be increased from ten to 12 members.