Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish my colleague the best of luck in his new role in this Ministry. I have known Deputy Collins for several years, and I have gotten to know him particularly well over the past four or five years when I served with him in Dáil Éireann. It is acknowledged that he is a man of vision and of thinking outside of the box. I have no doubt rhetoric will not be involved here but it will be work and innovation.

I agree with Senator McDowell in that it is important this Ministry will deliver. However, I find this announcement innovative. As Senator McDowell said, there has a been a great debate here. I do not want to disagree with any of my colleagues, but I must say to my Sinn Féin colleague that he might have been advised wrongly to go down the road he did. Even his colleague, Senator McCallion, said he knows about education in the north west and she made a good point. I do not think it is jobs for the boys or girls, I think it is an innovation and a new idea.

I respect the Senator's point of view, but I hope that he will respect mine as well because we are looking for funding for research, for students' laptops and for a student assistant fund. How many times have we heard students' mental health and well-being being discussed over recent years? It is a concern for every politician. That is even more critical now because we have gone through this Covid-19 crisis which, by the way, still has not gone away.

Regarding funding for the disadvantaged and the Traveller community, we all must accept the mainstream school system does not suit a considerable amount of young people. That is the reality. They cannot go into a school and listen to a teacher. They want new ideas and new ways, and often, with some new ideas, those people who are thrown on the scrapheap can be a huge success. Let us look at all the changing areas and remember that because of what is happening now in this country it is possible the way we have done things is going to change. Everything may have to change. The Senator spoke about the universities and whether they could function. They may have to function in a different world.

We talked earlier about the opening of schools and a huge amount of work is going on behind the scenes.One of the reasons the Government is not making statements is that it does not want to make a half statement this week and a half statement next week. It wants to get this right. I assure Senators that it wants to get all the national and secondary schools and third level colleges opened come September.

Other issues raised were climate change, which is a challenge, ageism and the proportion of elderly people in the population and apprenticeships, which should be a major issue. I studied horticulture in college and it is a sector that has been completely failed by the State over many years. There are major opportunities in horticulture, but we do not have a horticulture college. People can study horticulture at third level but at one stage we had three or four horticulture colleges. These types of issues can emerge from what is being done. I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, and the Minister, Deputy Harris, will be more than willing to engage, debate and take on board suggestions we have.

We have something different here. I was a wee garsún when in 1967 Donogh O'Malley made a radical statement by introducing free education. That was unbelievable at the time as people did not think it could happen. Perhaps we should view this as something similar and radical which we will implement to solve some of the problems in the education system. I accept there are challenges and that we will probably not achieve everything we want. This is, however, a great challenge and an opportunity. I wish the Minister of State and the Minister the best of luck. I certainly hope we can look back on this day in a few years' time as something innovative and radical in our educational system.