Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask for a debate on equality in our education system. As the Leader may be aware, there have been a number of court cases relating to University College Galway, UCG, - this is not to involve ourselves in court cases but it concerns equality in terms of promotional prospects. It is a very serious issue in St Angela's College in Sligo, which is the only constituent college of what we would have called the National University of Ireland north of the Dublin-Galway line. As part of the merger of that institution and UCG, it is proposed that the college lecturers, who have in the main the same qualifications, excellent educational outcomes and equality in all other ways, should transfer as less than equals and be known simply as university teachers. We cannot have a scenario where elitism and what is effectively the unfounded superiority complex of UCG are seen to displace the rightful career paths of people of PhD standard in terms of qualifications and to downgrade them to university teachers. I have written to the Minister for Education and Skills about this issue but as a House, we need to debate this issue because we cannot allow this kind of elitism to prevent people from having their rightful status in line with their qualifications and experience.

Following on from my call last week relating to the debts of smaller local authorities, could the Leader arrange a debate on local government funding, particularly those local government areas that do not have a robust funding mechanism compared to the large authorities in Dublin such as Fingal which has Dublin Airport as part of its rates base giving it the extraordinary position of having €100 million on deposit. Sligo has been told by the Department to close libraries. This is fundamentally wrong. Members of the other House, particularly Deputy Tony McLoughlin, have pointed out that this is an issue for the council and that the council need not close libraries. I remind this House and Deputy McLoughlin that it is the Government that needs to step in to help fund a local authority which does not have means to fund itself. That is essential.

The main point I wanted to raise today was to propose an amendment to the Order of Business to have the Minister for Health come to the House. We have seen again today crocodile tears being shed by a Minister who says he will redouble his efforts to deal with a crisis where 551 people are on trolleys throughout the country rather than where they should be. One remembers very clearly the tears of the emotional Deputy Reilly when he was judging the Government of the day on how it was dealing with it. One can only wonder what he might think of the blunder of this particular Government as we have 551 people on trolleys in all hospitals in the country, particularly Limerick which stands out with some 55 people on trolleys. When is the Government going to get to grips with this crisis? Last week, I outlined the fact that in correspondence to the Department of Health last September, the HSE looked for €1.4 billion. What did the Government do? It gave it an extra €100 million. I listened to some experts in the field on the radio as I came in here. They pointed out that this is down to resources. This is down to funding and was completely predictable. Indeed it was predicted. The Minister saying that the Government is going to redouble its efforts simply does not cut the mustard. It is amazing in the extreme that for all the dynamism the Minister appears to have as a politician, he has managed to surpass the level of mediocrity and failure his predecessor, Deputy Reilly, showed in this area.