I thank you, Sir, for facilitating me in raising this issue and I thank the Minister for coming in to reply. I urge the Minister for Education to respond urgently to the plea from the Irish Traveller Movement to fill the 23 visiting teacher posts for children of the travelling community. These posts were advertised in June 1995 but fell victim to a Government embargo. Since the service started in 1980 in Galway visiting teachers have proved to be of enormous value to the education of traveller children. The Department of Education described the service as one of the few initiatives in the area of traveller education that has been a success. Visiting teachers liaise between travelling families, schools and agencies active in the welfare of travellers. It is disgraceful that the Minister reneged on her commitment to appoint these teachers.
It is extraordinary that in the cutbacks of June 1995 the Minister hit the travelling community first, a community that is perhaps the most educationally disadvantaged. Many pleas were made in terms of cutbacks and the Minister lifted the embargo in other areas of education, but the embargo still applies to the visiting teacher service for the travelling community. The Minister's policy illustrates an extraordinary degree of political hypocrisy. She claims that she cares about the disadvantaged, but that is not so. For example, despite numerous requests, she has failed to meet the Irish Traveller Movement in the past three years. Why will she not meet that organisation? The Minister is the least accessible Minister for Education since the foundation of the State. I am inundated with correspondence from groups, bodies and movements which find it impossible to meet the Minister. Today at the Select Committee on Social Affairs IFUT, the organisation representing university teachers, stated that despite many requests the Minister for Education has refused to meet it.
The Labour Party talks ad nauseam about the need to be all-inclusive, to do everything possible to improve the quality of life and the education service for the travelling community, yet the Minister refuses to meet the Irish Traveller Movement. That organisation was forced to organise a protest outside the gates of Leinster House last Tuesday, to which it invited a number of politicians. The education spokespeople from the Opposition parties had no difficulty in meeting and sympathising with the group, but the Minister was not present.
It is a disgrace that a traveller education unit has not been established in the Department of Education, as recommended in the task force report on traveller education. The Government has failed to implement most if not all of the recommendations in that report, which is gathering dust on the shelves. Once again Labour Party rhetoric has failed to match reality.
This is the third occasion in two weeks I have raised education matters on the Adjournment.
It is a disgrace that the Minister pays so little regard to the House by not taking Adjournment matters of national and local importance. I pay tribute to the Minister of State, Deputy Allen, who has always made himself available on these issues but it is indicative of the Minister's respect for the House that she has ignored the Adjournment debates and treated them with contempt.