As I see it, the greatest problems confronting the people at present are the position in Northern Ireland, the unemployment question, our entry into the EEC and, to a degree, the increase in crime and the growing disrespect for authority. The question of the North of Ireland has been dealt with by a number of speakers. I do not intend to go very deeply into it, but living as I do in a Border county, and as one who has had occasion to go into Northern Ireland at least once or twice a month for the past 27 or 28 years, I could not let the occasion pass without expressing my view and the views of those whom I meet. Yesterday Senator Jessop spoke at some length on the position in the North of Ireland and traced it back to a breakaway in the Christian Churches in the 16th century. I think it is a bit more complex than that, and it would not be right to give the impression that all those who broke away from the Roman Church became anti-national or anti-Irish. The facts of history do not support that view. A long time after the breakaway in the Christian Churches we had the support and the success which attended the efforts of Wolfe Tone in Belfast; we had non-Roman Catholics playing a very important part in Antrim and Down in the rebellion of 1798. We had Protestants and Presbyterians actively supporting John Mitchel in the middle of the 19th century. It would be unfair to those who differed from the Roman Church but who dedicated their lives towards attaining freedom for the people of Ireland as a whole to have it thought that everybody who was not a Roman Catholic was not interested in the freedom of Ireland. That is not the lesson of history.
As time went on, with the development of the Orange Order and so forth, there came a division between two sections of the people, but all along there were those of the Protestant minority who were to a very high degree Nationalist in outlook and who worked and strove to attain independence and the establishment of a Republic here. Unfortunately, the position now is that there is a great division of opinion between two sections of the people. I have talked to people who firmly believe that for upwards of 50 years they have been treated as second-class citizens and they have reached a time now when they will not endure that kind of treatment any longer. They might be excused for thinking we did not have sufficient interest in their plight. As high as 40 per cent of these people are absolutely convinced that the regime that existed in Northern Ireland for the last 50 years will never become effective again. That is their belief. People who do not believe in violence think that, if no other means are available towards a permanent change in the situation that existed, then violence, much as they may regret it, is acceptable to them.
I do not believe in violence and nobody in this House believes in violence as a solution, but there is a danger that, with the passage of time and the deterioration there, more and more people may become convinced that that is the only solution and a growing percentage of the people here may come to agree with them. That is the danger, as I see it. I am not saying that the problem could be solved overnight if the Taoiseach and the members of the Government were as active as they should be. I do not believe that they could solve it overnight. I believe it is a very difficult problem, but we should all start on what is common ground.
I think everybody agrees, no matter what their solution for the problem in Northern Ireland may be, that it is the fault primarily of the Westminster Government, that the Westminster Government inflicted an injustice on this country in 1920. They have continued to subsidise that injustice to the tune of £100 million to £115 million a year and, for 50 years, the Westminster Government have tolerated the treatment of a high percentage of our people as second-class citizens. Long before Little Rock, Arkansas, became a household word as a symbol of people's determination not to put up with victimisation, that same situation existed in Northern Ireland.
I believe it is the duty of the Government and of the other parties to inform the rest of the world of the conditions that prevail in Northern Ireland and in that way force the Government of Westminster to take the initiative in arriving at some settlement, perhaps an interim settlement acceptable to the different sections, but with a permanent settlement in view. We should all work together towards the goal of having Ireland a fit place for Irish people to live in, irrespective of their religious persuasions. I do not believe for a moment that it will ever be possible to put the Nationalist population of Northern Ireland into the United Kingdom; neither do I believe it would be possible to bulldoze the Unionist population into the Republic.
Some interim settlement must be arrived at and leaders in all sections of the community who are aware of their responsibility to the people must strive to bring people together around the table. In the long run—this has happened elsewhere—when more lives have been lost, when more property has been destroyed and when more bitterness has been generated, this will have to be done. It would be as well to have it done sooner rather than later. For that reason I agree with the suggestion made here by Senator Brugha on Tuesday evening that everything that can be done by our leaders here, by the different parties and by people of different persuasions to educate world opinion as to the conditions in Northern Ireland should be done to bring it home to them that a solution must be found and that we are never going to go back to what has prevailed there for the past 50 years. If that were done I believe that some success would soon attend such efforts and, in the long run, we would attain something like an acceptable solution.
It is too bad that the British Home Secretary, Mr. Maudling, on the occasion of his last visit to Northern Ireland should leave saying that the most that could be hoped for would be to reduce the violence to acceptable proportions. If his outlook is that as long as violence is reduced to what he thinks is an acceptable proportion, a proportion the people are prepared to tolerate for ten, 15, 20 or 30 years, violence, death and destruction in Northern Ireland, then he simply does not understand the Irish outlook on these matters at all. It is not a question of having it reduced to acceptable proportions; something must be done or violence will increase. I have talked this matter over with people from the North of Ireland and it is silly to hope for a reduction in violence without trying to meet the wishes of the people. Fifteen thousand British soldiers or 50,000 British soldiers will not succeed in reducing the violence. The more soldiers drafted in the greater the violence will become.
Unemployment has been referred to by other Senators and I do not intend going into it in any great depth except to say that in common with those who have spoken already I regret the present situation. It is not something which can be remedied overnight. We have not made satisfactory progress down the years in building up of industry and developing employment opportunities. It is regrettable that anyone should say that when there is full employment in Britain we have an outlet there and when there is a recession in Britain and a growth in unemployment, our position is shown up in its true light. Though this may be true it is sad to have to say it.
It is a poor outlook when the obtaining of employment in Britain is an acceptable outlet for a high percentage of our people. If, while we are developing our industrial future, emigration can ease the situation all to the good, but the impression should not be given that as long as there is employment for thousands of our people in Britain we are all right but when that situation comes to an end, then we really must face facts. The objective of trying to achieve full employment for our own people within our own country should be before us all the time.
Some people throw the blame for the present employment situation on management; some blame the workers; others blame the Government. It is probably true that the blame must be shouldered to some degree by all three. Everybody knows that there have been industries and factories in operation for years which did not come up to the desired standard regarding structure, hygiene, et cetera. Management are often at fault in not anticipating changes of trend in the type of article they manufacture. There will not be the same demand in 1973, 1974 or 1975 for the same article as that manufactured in 1965. Change has come about and has caught some managements unprepared with the result that what they have been producing is not in demand.
The workers are the people who suffer most from unemployment and redundancy. There have been too many wild cat strikes in the past and too many workers not determined to give a fair day's work for a fair day's wage. There have been and probably are some workers who do not understand that the success of the industry in which they are earning a living is of vital importance to them. Very often they only wake up to this when they find themselves redundant. As a people we are not sufficiently dedicated and determined to give of our very best for our employer.
Workers in the recent past and not-so-recent past have resisted changes being introduced by management. In some cases where the management knew a different type of machinery was necessary to make an undertaking viable, the workers resisted the introduction of that new machinery or change of plant. Because management feared that happening industries were forced to attempt to carry on at a production rate which the management clearly understood to be less than economic. With the increase in competition from other countries, and the change in trends and types of goods in demand, the inevitable happened and these plants were forced to close.
It is said at times that the workers' demands for wage increases have been unreasonable. This may be true in some cases but a demand for an increase in wages will come if there is a steep increase in the cost-of-living. Each year we have had a very steep increase in the cost-of-living in the last few years. I am not entirely convinced that the Government took sufficiently effective measures to stem that. In so far as that—in some cases—unwarranted increase in the cost of the necessities of life contributed to a demand for higher wages which in turn contributed to a degree to our products being priced out of the market then the finger of blame must be with those who did not check this spiral in time.
It has been stated that it is necessary from time to time to retrain workers and it has also been said rightly, by Senator Cranitch, that we cannot develop a new industry overnight. A new plant cannot be built to cater immediately for workers who have lost employment, but an attitude of anticipation might have made the development of new industries coincide more closely with the phasing out of the older ones. There are areas where, without much effort, apart from the provision of finance—and in some cases that is there already—measures could be taken to relieve the situation.
In regard to arterial drainage we have not being making satisfactory progress in this connection. I may be told that this is very costly and I agree, but it is a productive undertaking. There are large tracts of land that are much below the proper level of productivity because they are subject to flooding year after year and the farmers who own the land cannot get the maximum return from it. There are vast areas where land drainage schemes cannot be carried out under the Land Project because the arterial river itself is in such a state that it cannot take more water from streams draining land.
Last year when we discussed the Appropriation Bill I referred to the question of the River Erne. I refer to the failure to drain the River Erne in Cavan as an example to prove the point I am trying to get across. For years we were told in Cavan that the impossibility of draining the River Erne, the basin of which is formed mostly by County Cavan, was due to the failure of the Northern Ireland Government to drain the part of the Lower Erne passing through County Fermanagh. But that has been done nine or ten years ago and we are no nearer having the Erne drainage and the drainage of other rivers carried out in Cavan, with the result that large parts of the county are subject to recurring flooding. Farms of which part is subject to flooding every year are barely economical. If the drainage were done a holding that is now barely economic, and, in some cases less than economic, could become economic and provide a good living for a farmer, his wife and family. That is a costly undertaking but it would yield good results. It would increase the wealth and productivity of the country in the time ahead. Intensification of drainage work in certain areas could relieve the unemployment problem.
Some months ago the Dáil and Seanad voted money for the extension of rural electrification to areas which for some reason were omitted in the past. That happened five or six months ago and in my part of the country nothing significant has since been done in regard to that scheme. It would relieve unemployment if the ESB were to go ahead now with the extension of rural electrification in these areas.
There are tourist resorts which have not been developed to the maximum. It would be worth borrowing money to develop these resorts to provide employment at the present time because it would be productive employment that would yield returns in the years immediately ahead.
Afforestation could be speeded up. That, also, would relieve the unemployment in rural areas and in small towns. Great capital expenditure is not necessary in this case because in almost every county land has already been acquired for afforestation.
I agree with the point made by Senator Quinlan earlier under the heading of Education about the £25 supplementary grant. That is a question of more money, as was observed by some Senators on the other side. My information is that the heads of these schools were given to understand five years ago that this £25 would be progressively increased. Nothing has been done about it. Senator Quinlan has gone into the matter in depth. I do not propose to delay the House any further beyond saying that if the late Donogh O'Malley gave this undertaking five years ago the Government are in honour bound to do something about raising the figure of £25 in order to help to meet increased costs.
Another thing which causes a good deal of discontent in secondary schools at present is a Department regulation by which permission is required before engaging a new teacher. Heretofore the head of a school was permitted to employ teachers so long as the ratio of one teacher to 15 pupils was maintained. There is now no specified figure as to what the ratio is. It has happened, and is continuing to happen, that the heads of schools employ teachers because they feel an additional teacher or two is absolutely necessary and, having done so, they are unable to get sanction.
I now wish to mention a point I have raised before but which I feel is worthy of mention again. The reason it has not been attended to in the Department is that sufficient pressure has not been brought to bear. The revised programme for the teaching of modern languages lays down that more and more attention be paid to developing proficiency in the spoken language. That is the direction to the teachers of these subjects. When it comes to examination time the performance of the child depends on his or her ability to do well on a written paper only. I have been told by a secondary teacher with many years experience that if she were to teach French to her class as instructed and expected by the Department her students would all fail the intermediate certificate.
After a good deal of pressure some years ago the Department was forced to introduce an oral examination in Irish in the leaving certificate. It was opposed for a long time because the view was held by officers of the Department that it would be impossible to obtain the necessary number of examiners to visit the schools within a short time. In the end those who advocated the oral examination persevered and the wisdom of their argument was seen. Now 150 marks are awarded for the oral examination in Irish in the leaving certificate examination. But there is no oral examination in French or any other modern language. That is most regrettable and I hope the officers of the Department will give more thought to it. After all proficiency in the spoken language is what we should be aiming at now that we are thinking of going into Europe: it should be our first objective. It took a long time to get that accepted in regard to the Irish language, but it is taking an even longer time to get it accepted in regard to modern languages. I hope those in this House who are as interested in education as I am will continue to keep the pressure on.
Another point to which I should like to draw attention is that the new approach to the teaching of various subjects in the secondary schools, especially at leaving certificate level, demands a good deal of reading and reference work. It is generally agreed that the standard of the honours leaving certificate now is much the same as the First Arts some years ago. The student who is properly prepared for leaving certificate and guided along lines that will enable him or her to succeed at university level must be trained to the intelligent use of library facilities but it is impossible for secondary schools to get a grant from the Department to help to build libraries.
In sparsely populated provincial areas, where the school buses have a large area to cover, the secondary school children leave home at 8 a.m. and do not return home until 6 p.m. There are no canteen facilities in the secondary schools they attend. It is most unwise—to put it mildly—to expect children of that age who have had breakfast at 7.30 a.m. to go without any substantial meal until 6 p.m. I am convinced that in time so much pressure will be brought to bear on the Department by the medical authorities that something will be done to provide canteen facilities for students in all secondary schools and especially those who spend such long hours away from home.
During the last four or five years we have heard a good deal of talk about career guidance and only a few people are not convinced of the necessity for it but the career guidance facilities which we provide are not what they should be. I do not think the matter is being tackled seriously at all.
There are difficulties in obtaining properly qualified people who will interest themselves deeply in the subject but we have been playing about with it for too long with the result that far too many students end up as square pegs in round holes. They fall into some job for which they are not properly equipped or suited. If we are to get the maximum return for the money spent on education and the greatest possible measure of happiness and contentment among our people in employment it is absolutely essential to ensure that people will be channelled into the jobs most suited to them. We have fallen so far back in this regard that we have students launching on a university career which demands subjects they did not study at any level during their secondary course and as a result they fail at the end of their first year at university. This results in great discontent, dissatisfaction and waste of effort.
I was asked by some secondary teachers to draw attention to the failure rate in some subjects in the leaving certificate last year. The figures for failures they gave me in regard to some subjects were so alarming that I went to the trouble of checking them with the Department of Education from whom I received the relevant figures this morning. I am very glad that the failure rate in the leaving certificate in Irish has gone down very significantly. I am convinced that this is due, in large measure, to the introduction of the oral Irish examination. This ensures that people who are not geniuses at the written language but who reach a certain standard of proficiency in oral Irish will be able to get through their examination. I welcome that change and I hope it will be extended to other modern languages in the near future.
I was astonished to learn that the failure rate in mathematics among boys doing the leaving certificate is as high as 22 per cent. Over one-fifth of the boys—I did not get the figure for girls —who sat for mathematics in the leaving certificate failed in the subject. The failure rate for chemistry was 26 per cent. In the combined paper on physics and chemistry, 32 per cent failed and there was a failure rate in biology of 34 per cent. I ask the Members here what the reaction should be to figures like that—that one-third of the boys who sat for the combined paper in physics and chemistry failed? Does that mean that as a race we are not able to attain required standards in physics and chemistry? Does it mean that our teachers of physics and chemistry are totally inefficient? Does it mean that the Department are demanding an excessively high standard? I am convinced, and hundreds of others will become convinced when they become aware of the fact, that that is a ridiculous percentage of failures.
There is something grievously wrong in the whole set-up. If it is true that it has only been in recent years we have has a swing to physics and chemistry, to mathematics and biology, then sooner than fail one-quarter of all the students in one subject and one-third in another we should be content to accept a lower standard until we can reach the optimum conditions. Perhaps the failure rate is due to lack of facilities; perhaps it is due to the lack of training of some teachers in new developments in these subjects, but whatever the reason, it is wrong and unjust that so many students who devote their time to these subjects should flop in the end and have nothing at all to show they had any training in this subject.
I can understand the need for a high standard being set in honours subjects for students who will probably go to university because if they are to make progress there they must have attained a certain level before they enter the university. However, this does not apply to people who obtain the pass level and who have no hope of studying these subjects at university or in third level education. This situation is unrealistic and, attention having been drawn to it, I hope that the people responsible will ensure that it ceases.
Everybody associated with secondary education is aware that each year an outrageously difficult paper is set in one particular subject. One year it will be English, the next year it will be on another subject and so on. When the teachers see this paper they realise that even the most brilliant students will have great difficulty in getting through. These papers are of a much higher standard than that on which the course is based. There must be consistency in the formulation of examination papers. If not, it will be the students who will suffer and, through no fault of their own, they will fail in these particular subjects. This should not be the case.
With regard to the national school curriculum, it has generally been accepted but I would not advocate its total adoption to the complete exclusion of the old system which has stood the test of time. Through this new curriculum the children's educational potential will be developed; it is an entirely new approach but some of the old training techniques must still be employed. As we gain more experience in the system it will be a case of keeping the best of what is new while, at the same time, retaining what is best in the old system.
During a recent symposium on the new curriculum, held in Cavan, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the non-availability of suitable texts. There seems to be no reason for this scarcity. Another disadvantage which was mentioned was that the teacher/ pupil ratio is too high. In some urban schools in the country we have the situation where a teacher is in charge of from 50 to 60 pupils. This cannot work. It is false economy, the end result being that the teacher is overworked and the pupils are not receiving adequate attention.
I appreciate that sometimes, as in the case of newly-developed urban areas, inevitably these difficulties will arise. It should, however, be the aim of those responsible for education that no teacher would be expected to take charge of a class of upwards of 50 students. The numbers should be very much lower.
I do not know the reason for the closing down of the one- and two-teacher schools. A few years ago the Department of Education enthusiastically pursued a policy of closing down these schools. The rural population resisted this programme as they are reluctant to change and now it seems this policy has been abandoned. I know of schools which are being kept open without sufficient numbers attending. Some teachers are being forced to stay on after reaching retirement age because the managers cannot find replacements. This is especially the case in the remote parts of the country.
The tendency for young people is to move towards the towns or cities. This leaves the rural schools in the charge of teachers who have reached retirement age, who are not able competently to fulfil their duties. However, rather than see the school closed for want of a teacher they continue to hold their positions.
At the other extreme, we still have teachers who are not qualified for their work. There are not as many as previously but some still remain. Something was obviously wrong with the system in the training colleges. In the thirties so many teachers were qualifying that they had to go to work on the roads or work as warble fly inspectors or do anything at all that would keep body and soul together. Now we are in a position where not enough teachers are qualifying. That is bound to have bad results. I hope that position will be cleared up in the near future.
I will deal only briefly with matters pertaining to agriculture. With regard to the dairying industry I will not have to make any preamble. We all fully realise the importance of the dairying industry to this country. We welcome every effort made by the Government and by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to improve the conditions that prevail there. Dairying is a hard life. It demands attention seven days a week, morning and evening. There is no such thing as a five-day week for the dairy farmer. Whatever can be done to raise his standard of living is to be welcomed. It will help to maintain an industry which is of vital importance.
With regard to the new price structure announced by the Minister some time ago when he said that an average price of 2 pence per gallon will prevail I want to point out that over 80 per cent of the milk suppliers will be getting less than one penny per gallon, not 2 pence. People who are supplying less than 10,000 gallons per annum will lose their first year bonus. As conditions are at present it is not true to say that these people will have an increase of 2 pence per gallon.
The new arrangements that the Minister said would shortly be introduced have not been announced yet. People are most anxious to know what will be required to attain the new standard. What standard of butter fat content, cleanliness, and so on will be necessary? Representatives from the creamery managers, the IFA and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association called on the Department a number of times to have these points clarified. The clarification has not come yet. Even the officers in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries are at a loss when questioned on these points to explain what the required standards will be.
At present there is a payment of 2½ pence per gallon for taking skim milk home. My attention has been drawn to this because of the failure to indicate clearly what standards will be required in regard to tests. Let us take the instance of a person who has a supply of 40 gallons of milk and has a test of 3.7. He delivers that 40 gallons to the creamery and takes home 32 gallons of skim milk at 2½ pence per gallon. Next day he gets his 40 gallons of whole milk, he adulterates that with 8 gallons of skim milk which he brought home the day before and he now has 48 gallons. Because he was careful in the amount of adulteration his tests still come up to the minimum required and he has 48 gallons. From that he will get 38 gallons of skim which he can bring home at 5 pence a gallon. Some of that 38 gallons of skim which he brings home was, in fact, brought in the day before.
That is the sort of thing that could develop if there was sufficient trickery on the part of the dairy farmer, which I am not saying is the case. Because of the failure to announce clearly and unambiguously what standards are required under the new set-up that is what could happen if we were a dishonest people. It is necessary that the Minister should state at once the standards required in regard to butter fat, the blue methylene test and so on.
There are a few other matters which I intend to deal with very briefly. There is the question of growth in the crime rate and a tendency to have less and less respect for authority and for law and order. It is an accepted fact that there is a lowering in standards in that regard. A couple of unfortunate things happened in the not so recent past that tended to develop this tendency. Some time ago a prominent member of the judiciary was not willing to sit in judgment of a person of some eminence in this country. When that got abroad the ordinary rank-and-file among us began to think that there are certain standards for some and other standards for others. That was regrettable.
Another development that caused disquiet among the community and tended to reduce our respect for the courts was at time of the national farmers' strike, or their protests against the failure of the Minister to see their deputation. District justices at the time imposed very severe sentences on these people not so much because they believed that they had broken the law to such a degree but, it is believed now, because they were instructed by the Government to be ultra-severe. That led people to believe that the judiciary can be interfered with. I know that is not true. Certainly it is not true to any alarming degree but there are thousands of people who believe it is.
If we once lose our respect for the independence and impartiality of the judiciary we are heading for something very close to anarchy. It is most regrettable that these developments have taken place but some measures will have to be taken to redress them and remove the belief that is held by many people. Recently grave dissatisfaction was expressed by the gardaí with regard to the course of justice as it operated in Cork or some part of the south of Ireland. It is most regrettable that that should happen.
It is also a fact that the numerical strength of the Garda force was allowed to run down to a dangerously low level. Dublin is acquiring a most unenviable reputation for the amount of crime that is committed here with regard to thefts of cars, thefts from cars and so on.
I regret to have to say that I believe we are one of the worst cities in western Europe in that regard. That is a comparatively new threat and is one that must be nipped in the bud, not only to restore our image but to make a visit to the country's capital city tolerable at all for people and not to destroy forever our attraction as a tourist centre for people from different parts of the world. That development took place for the simple reason that manpower in the Garda Síochána is not strong enough to patrol the streets properly and to give proper protection. My attention was drawn to the fact that there is a habit in the city whereby gangsters read the death notices in the morning papers, note the time of funerals, and having concluded that a house will be unoccupied at that time, proceed to break in and ransack it. I do not want to be an alarmist and I am not saying that it is being done on a wide scale, but it is being done.
I know a person who went to a Garda station to draw their attention to that danger, that a funeral taking place from her home the following day might afford an opportunity to these thugs to break in, only to be told by the garda in charge that he did not have a man to spare to give special protection to her home for that time. I think it is a most regrettable state of affairs that we should come to that. There is no right-thinking person in the country who would not rejoice in seeing a thug who would break into a house at a time of a bereavement to ransack it apprehended and given the proper treatment.
The numerical strength of the Garda force in Dublin is not nearly adequate, and indeed in the country as a whole it is not adequate. Time has shown that the decision to close down Garda stations in the Border counties to the degree to which it was done before the development of the present troubles was a stupid mistake. Everyone should have realised that even in times of relative calm in the North it is a particularly sensitive area. The closing down of Garda stations all along the Border counties of Louth, Meath, Cavan, Leitrim and Monaghan was a disastrous mistake. It showed a complete unawareness of the situation that obtains there and of the potentiality in the area for various developments.
It is also regrettable that the numerical strength of the Army was reduced to the level at which it is now. Not only that, but I think it is agreed that the equipment the Army have is, to put it mildly, obsolescent, if not entirely obsolete. In my opinion, it was a mistake to reduce the Forsa Cosanta Áitiúil. That was a force that was established here when there was a great need for it; it was a success from the point of view that people joined it in very large numbers because they were determined to resist any attempt at invasion, from whatever source it might come. That should have been developed and young men should have been encouraged to carry on that part-time military training. It was useful from a number of points of view but the force was allowed to run down in strength and it would be difficult to get it back to the required level in the immediate future.
There is one last point with which I should have dealt when dealing with education. I would ask Senators on all sides of the House to reflect on this: schools are being built in various parts of the country and in some cases, even in rural Ireland, not one solitary square yard of playground is provided. It is most regrettable that owing to costs and for other reasons this sometimes happens in cities. It should not happen in cities but we have at all times to be conscious of the cost of buying an extra acre of land or two in the heart of the city. It has surely gone much too far when it occurs in the heart of rural Ireland when a school, be it prefabricated or otherwise, is put up without a solitary square yard of playground. There is no place for the children to go except out on the public road. Not only is it wrong from the recreational point of view to have children spend their free time playing on the roadway, it is dangerous and it makes it difficult to inculcate road sense in these people in the years ahead. If in his impressionable years a road is a playground for a child, how are you going to get him to understand the hazards of the roads in future years?
In conclusion I wish to say that I regret that at the new technological schools in Athlone and Letterkenny, while some provision has been made for facilities for playing some types of games—soccer I think, and I have no objection whatever to students being given facilities to play soccer if that is the game of their choice, or rugby or even cricket if they want it—no facilities are provided at these schools for the playing of our own native games, hurling and Gaelic football. That should not happen. As a matter of fact, there are those who could make a case for giving priority to Gaelic games. I do not want to take an accusatory, bigoted or narrow-minded view about it; my belief is that a man or woman, boy or girl, should play whatever games he or she wishes, but as a nation certain games mean more to us than others. It must be entirely wrong to give more facilities to other games than to our national games.
