Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 166: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to the address to the recent Irish Primary Principals Network by a UCD professor, that education is increasingly being treated as a business rather than a public service here; the need for a full public debate on whether market-driven education further disadvantages the disadvantaged; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9774/04]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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I am aware of the speech, Public Issues in Education, to which the Deputy refers and I value Professor Lynch's contribution.

I welcome the discussion on the many issues raised by Professor Lynch in her recent presentation to the Irish Primary Principals' Network. The Deputy will be aware that in this context, I have instigated a nationwide consultation process, Your Education System, that is giving me the opportunity to hear the concerns of all stakeholders at first hand. As I stated during the launch of the Your Education System process, I invite everyone in the country to participate in discussion and debate on education in Ireland into the future. At the heart of this process is the key question of the future of our schools.

I share many of the concerns raised by Professor Lynch in relation to our education system, particularly those related to children who are disadvantaged. I recognise the need for us to consider what it is we as a community require from our schools as society changes and evolves.

Choice must remain at the heart of our system but it must never be allowed to compromise the development and care values that have traditionally characterised education in this country. For parental choice to be effective it must be informed by more than league tables of examination results in their raw form, to which I am opposed. It is for this reason that I have recently initiated debate on how we can inform parents and students on the effectiveness of our schools.

I agree that a quality education needs to be inclusive and accessible to all and as the Deputy is aware, both I and my Department are very much focused on the needs of the disadvantaged in our society. Consequently a number of programmes are in place at all levels to support the needs of students in this regard from early start programmes for pre-school children right through to community education initiatives designed to provide a second chance education for adults.

I am aided also in this debate by the educational disadvantage committee which is an independent statutory body, established in March 2002 under the Education Act 1998. The committee, which is chaired by Professor Áine Hyland, vice-president and professor of education, University College Cork, is responsible for advising me on policies and strategies to be adopted to identify and correct educational disadvantage. In addition a broad review of all initiatives to tackle educational disadvantage is under way in my Department. In this context I believe that Professor Lynch's contribution will prove invaluable as this debate continues.