asked the Minister for Education if he will take steps to cause to be appointed a Select Committee to be nominated by the Committee of Selection and with powers to send for persons, papers and documents, to investigate publicly and report to the Dáil on the social, educational and other effects likely to be created by the discharge of boys and girls of 14 years of age from the primary schools in the County Borough of Dublin and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, in the general circumstances created by the present emergency.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - School Leaving Age.
I do not propose to take steps for the appointment of such a committee.
Will the Minister say what he proposes to do to examine the situation which will be created in present circumstances for the next two years, when thousands of boys and girls will be idle in the City of Dublin? Has he contemplated what the result of that will be on the city, educationally and otherwise?
That was not the question asked.
I submit that as 5,000 boys and 5,000 girls will be leaving the schools this year and next year, with no prospect of getting work, if the Minister does not deal with the situation then the question would have no meaning.
The matter was dealt with on the Estimates, and I have nothing to add to what I said then.
Do I understand, then, that the Government are going to allow that situation to exist and develop without taking any steps to deal with it, or to examine it?
The matter has been examined and is constantly under consideration, but it is extremely difficult to do anything in present circumstances.
Does not the Minister realise that there is a great difference between telling Parliament that the matter is being examined and, at the same time, ignoring it and not doing anything about it?
The Deputy knows that the matter has been examined.
But it has been ignored.