James Heffernan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Following on from what Senator Eamonn Coghlan said about the level of obesity among the population, I draw the attention of the House to an incident that occurred at the weekend. Prior to the under-21 football final between Tipperary and Tyrone the intermediate ladies football final took place between my county of Limerick and Offaly which Offaly won. It is the treatment of the ladies involved prior to the game that I wish to highlight. They show the same dedication in training as everybody else, yet they had to tog out at a location ten minutes away from the pitch by bus. They were not allowed to bring their gear bags into the ground. The half-time team talk took place in a hallway in which people were preparing food. The ladies concerned who have given so much of their time to playing for their counties did not receive as much as the match programme, even though they were playing in an all-Ireland final. That is not good enough at a time when we have such good female role models in sport. Katie Taylor is an obvious one, as is Anna Geary, the captain of the Cork camogie team who has received four all-star awards and has four all-Ireland medals and who announced her retirement at the weekend. I wish her the best of luck. What I have mentioned does not encourage anybody to become involved in sport.

What I really want to talk about is the march that took place at the weekend involving foreign language students in Ireland to learn English. There are English language schools located all over the capital city to which we invite people from all over the world to come to learn English and then relate their positive experiences here.Many of these students have clubbed together thousands of euro in their countries by going cap in hand to neighbours, friends and relatives to raise the money to go to the schools and, when they get there, the schools can close overnight with no protection for these students who are coming here to learn English. The person who organised that march at the weekend stated she had worked as an English language teacher all over the world and that while the schools are poorly regulated everywhere, Ireland is the worst in the world and we need regulation. These schools are often operated by charlatans and fly-by-nights, and while the tutors in these schools are offered some protection, there is no recompense at all for any of the students. This is not a problem that has arisen recently. This dates back a couple of years. When Deputy Ruairí Quinn was Minister, I brought it to his attention as well. Often many of these students are forced into working in poorly paid employment, for example, as au pairs, where their conditions of work are poor to say the least, and they do not seem to have anywhere to turn or to go to. Perhaps it is because they cannot vote that people are not making a big noise about it, but it certainly does nothing to enhance our reputation as a country abroad when this kind of thing happens. I seek a debate in this House with the Minister for Education and Skills to see what is being done to regulate these types of schools.