Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes, my former constituency colleague. I will request that she would talk to us about this sharing of information because I do not believe anybody understands how vital big data is to those 900 people who are paying their hot dollars to get our information.

I apologise, particularly to Senator Keogan, for the inconvenience caused by having to reschedule the debate on the Moorhead report. She has raised it here a number of times because she cares, understands and appreciates the value of councillors, as we all do. Like the Senator, many of us were councillors for years. Many of us started our political careers on councils, including Senator Ó Donnghaile in Belfast. We all know the hard work that is put in by councillors and the value they give to constituents in towns and villages in rural and urban areas across the country. The very least they need is respect and for the language used in the Moorhead report to be retracted. We also need to put our money where our mouth is and recognise the work that is done. We sometimes do councillors a disservice in our local and public media. That is a real shame given the number of hours that they work. I had to reschedule the debate because there were a number of very technical amendments to the legislation this afternoon. I had only scheduled an hour and a half for that debate and I had to extend it. I apologise because I am aware that people had speeches and presentations to bring to the Chamber this afternoon. I will try to get the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, to come to the House as quickly as I can next week and, if his diary cannot accommodate that, the week after that.

Senator Martin Conway raised this issue earlier. The Minister for Education and Skills will make a statement this afternoon on the basis that, apparently, a number of errors have been found in the calculated grades system for leaving certificate students. I do not know the gravity of the situation. I only know that I have a young lady at home who was devastated a number of weeks ago when she missed nursing by a lousy 19 points because she was under-graded by the system. I hope that we manage the system collectively and in an unpolitical way, for want of a better word, because the 60,000 or 70,000 young girls and fellows at home who have been impacted in a major way in recent weeks because of the system that was lauded to have been managed so well are experiencing significant distress today. A telephone helpline will be announced this afternoon to allow each and every one of them connect with the Department to see what impact it has on them. Collectively, we must work together to try to rectify whatever has gone wrong to make sure that our young people are not further impacted by Covid-19, through no fault of their own, than they have been.

Regarding the proposed amendment to the Order of Business, on the basis that I have no way of securing the Minister for Transport to come to the House today, I ask the Senator to withdraw it on the assurance that I will ask today if he will come into the House at the earliest possible time. That is all I can do for the Senator.