Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It appears that we are because there have been a number of reasoned contributions made. I was particularly struck by Senator Grace O'Sullivan's contribution. She asked a pertinent question: what was wrong with the existing ethos? Why do we have to boil it down to entrepreneurship? We all know, because of the history of our country, how important jobs are, but I do not believe the purpose of education is purely to be at the service of private industry. Surely we are better than that. I wonder about the ideology that lies at the heart of it, whether it is the ideology of civil servants in Departments, or just the very strong right-wing ideology of the Fine Gael Party, that believes we should boil it down to entrepreneurship above all else. That is straight out of Mrs. Thatcher's play book. I do not accept it. More importantly, across this Chamber there is consensus that it should be changed. I worry about the values the Government is espousing. Is entrepreneurship what we are going to teach young people as they enter third level colleges? Let us narrow the curriculum. There was a person speaking on the "Ryan Tubridy Show" yesterday morning who was discussing the dangers of narrowing education, yet here we have the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills-----