I thank the Minister for being present for the entire debate. I listened carefully to what she had to say. I also thank all my Assembly Colleagues who participated.

Dr Adamson mentioned early diagnosis and other important primary care issues, such as multidisciplinary groups and equality of partners in the new groups. Early diagnosis is extremely important. Mr McCarthy was positive in his comments about the need for a first-class service. However, he did say that we do not have a clear vision. He also described the way in which the groups are to be set up as quangos. Ms Morrice made positive comments, although I think that she said she was going to vote against the motion. However, I may have taken her up wrongly. If she is to vote against the motion, I do not understand why.

Mr McCartney spoke about waiting lists, which is a massive subject in itself. He said that we have the longest waiting lists in Europe. He also talked about the bureaucratic set-up in the Northern Ireland Health Service and mentioned various bodies that have expressed concern. Mr McGrady spoke from his experiences with bureaucratic structures, resources and waiting lists. He talked especially about pain and suffering, which is a key point as it happens daily. He also said that people are dying.

Dr Birnie focused on the groups themselves and on enhancing the power of the boards, which is also a key point. It is a top-down, not a bottom-up, structure. We are increasing the powers of the boards, and the Member mentioned the word "diktat" in that regard. Mr Shannon talked about cancer problems and about trying to get appointments with nurses in GPs' practices. He also mentioned the massive pressures on primary care services. We all know that there are asthma clinics, clinics for the elderly and many other clinics, but we are concerned with the overall strategy.

Mr John Kelly made some points on which I wish to comment. First, he said that I had not declared my interest in primary care. On a point of order, in January 2001, during a similar debate, I definitely declared that I retained a slight interest in primary care. I apologise if I have misled anyone in the Assembly, but if I did, I did so inadvertently. I have never gained one penny through fundholding, and, as far as primary care is concerned, I shall not be involved in it for very much longer. However, I shall not go into that.

Will the Member give way?

I shall not give way. I normally give way to Mr John Kelly, but not when I am summing up.

Mr John Kelly also said that we had heard from no representatives of those who are in favour - in favour of what? We are all in favour of the new primary care groups. The discussion has been going on for years, ever since John McFall was the direct rule Minister. If Mr John Kelly is saying that all the organisations that we are discussing, as well as certain other groups that I listed in my opening speech, oppose the Minister's decision, I have already dealt with them. Organisations such as the Northern Ireland Trust Nurses Association and the directors of social services, with whom we met last Wednesday, are well informed. Although they are not at the coalface, they support the new measures, just as we all support them. However, they are not querying the fact that the guidelines could have been laid down long ago. That is the key point.

Will the Member give way?

Sorry, I am summing up. I cannot give way because I only have a few minutes left.

Mr Berry talked about turning back the clock and said that fundholding was dead. Of course, he is absolutely right. Mr John Kelly and Ms Ramsey queried having this debate in the first place. I point out to them it is only in the last six or seven weeks that details of the primary care groups have come to the people concerned, so it was impossible for the Committee for Health, Social Services and Public Safety to see every group that wanted to meet us. We have met as many groups as possible and I - [Interruption].

Order. It is not in order for Members to interrupt a Member who is speaking. All Members got reasonable hearings, so I do not see why the Chairperson should not get a reasonable hearing too.

As Chairperson, I have tried to facilitate every member of the Committee, including Mr John Kelly, with regard to the people whom they wanted me to meet in the past. However, with the key date being 1 April it was impossible for the Committee to meet all the groups. The Minister and her Department should have brought the groups along with them during the last 12 months.

Mr Hamilton talked about an amendment and about an opportunity missed - most of us would accept that. Mrs Iris Robinson talked about the broad support for the Minister's original model. However, there was no broad support for that model; there was broad support for the model in 'Fit for the Future', which was brought forward by John McFall.

In 'Building the Way Forward in Primary Care - Summary of the Responses to the Consultation', the Minister refers to "respondents". As I said to her last week - if a wee man in the Cavehill had written a letter about the future of primary care, he would have become a respondent. All groups - primary care, nurses, midwives - are referred to as "respondents" and, according to the document, most of them are supportive.

Mr Gibson talked about the legacy of bureaucracy and about things being imposed. Ms Armitage's grave concern was shared by most of the Committee for Health, Social Services and Public Safety, and she wants no fudge. My Colleague, Mr Gallagher, talked about the workload on primary care, increased public expectation, resources and, above all, accountability.

The Minister described the primary care groups in detail. The Assembly supports primary care groups. Primary care-led health services are happening in these islands and in western Europe, and we agree with what the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said about such a service. The reason for the amendment in January 2001 was to allow for a seamless transition.

The Minister said that the committees were statutory committees of the boards - I hope we are not playing with words. There was no primary legislation involved. Of course, the matter is within the statutory arrangements of the boards, but they are still committees of the boards. I hope - it will not be before the election, but perhaps following it next year - that there will be primary legislation in the Assembly to give power to the people at the front line, so that there will be a truly primary care-led Health Service in which all professionals are equal and have direct links to the community.

I will not raise the issue of the composition of the boards now. I will finish by saying that we want the best primary care for the people of Northern Ireland and that it is up to the Minister and her Department to bring people along with them. Mr John Kelly mentioned groups that we have not spoken to: all of them support the new ideas for primary care. Maybe it is not too late, but it is now over to the Minister and her Department.

Agriculture Industry

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Mr Savage:

I beg to move

It is now some 15 months since I last introduced a major motion on agriculture to the Assembly. That was on 5 December 2000. At that time, the House unanimously supported the motion, which called for more proactivity on the part of the Department to redress the sorry state that agriculture was in at that time. Unanimity is not common in the House, so, when it occurs, Ministers should always take special note.

At that time, I proposed the adoption of a farmers' early retirement and loan scheme, which - if I may paraphrase what would be a complex piece of legislation - would set out to enable older farmers to retire with dignity, a lump sum and a pension and enable young blood to enter the agriculture sector with new ideas, new perspectives and a business education behind it. The legislation that I proposed was based on the schemes currently operational in Denmark and France, so we were not in uncharted waters. Indeed, I had been in close contact with the Agriculture Ministries in both countries as well as with the appropriate directorates in Brussels and the now demised Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in London - a Ministry axed because of its lack of proactivity.

I was enthused about the scheme from the contact that I had with its practitioners through my membership of the Committee of the Regions in the European Union. The most important feature of the scheme was that it would provide a proper and proven framework around which the farming sector could restructure itself. The need for the scheme was great in December 2000 when we were in the middle of an unprecedented crisis in agriculture - foot-and-mouth disease was still to come. However, the need for the scheme is even greater today.

Oliver Cromwell, a gentleman whom I am careful about quoting here, once said to Parliament

We may not be in a hurricane season. There may have been a slight improvement in farm incomes. I emphasise the word "slight", because I challenge the Minister and her colleagues to explain to the House how they would live on the average improved income of only £5,800 a year that farming families now receive. Although we may not be in the midst of a hurricane, we are certainly not in fair weather yet.

However small or temporary the respite between crises may be, it provides a chance for us to act decisively and not in the midst of chaos. That is why I am advocating action now. I called for action in December 2000, and I am doing so again 15 months later. It is the duty of the Government to provide a legislative framework to enable farming to restructure. A new era for farming is slowly emerging. It is an era driven largely by Europe, where the subsidy culture will soon be a thing of the past. It is an era in which the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's successor Department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has already set out a new role for farmers as custodians of the countryside.

The collapse of the former farming economic infrastructure has been driven by powerful forces. The strength of sterling has driven down our international competitiveness. There has been a disempowerment of the farming sector, and the sector has not restructured as quickly as the food-based industries that it sustains. As a consequence, farmers have been in a poor negotiating position with the big supermarket chains and the even bigger capital that they represent. World food prices have fallen when there has been economic prosperity for every other sector of the economy.

The farming sector has fared poorly compared to other sectors. People have difficulty identifying with the hard-pressed farmers. In addition, our farmers face competition from the Third World, the Far East and Europe, and trade liberalisation makes the problem worse. The report of the policy commission on farming and food was clear on the remedy for a sustainable future.

However, farming must become more business- focused. The policy commission's report said that it could become a vibrant, profitable business, attracting investment and new entrants by listening to the people who consume its products and conserving its most valuable asset - a healthy and attractive countryside.

We cannot reorganise farming into viable, healthy business-orientated, economically efficient units unless we restructure it, and that can be done only by introducing an early retirement scheme for farmers and encouraging young people who have been trained in agricultural colleagues and farms to take up the challenge and by providing Northern Ireland farming with a business plan. I am advocating both of those.

If the Minister does not introduce an early retirement scheme and provide a framework for restructuring, that is tantamount to saying that we will abandon farmers to the powerful economic forces I have mentioned. Some farmers will sink, and some will swim. That is not a recipe for ordered restructuring - it is a rout. It is an abdication of the duty we owe to an important part of our community that depends on agriculture for its living.

I remind the House of the knock-on effects of that. Only 0·9% of the British electorate is actively engaged in farming. In Northern Ireland about 85,000 people are engaged, one way or another, in agriculture. The building trade employs only one third of that number. As an employer, farming is second only to manufacturing. For reasons of economic prudence, we should introduce an early retirement scheme and a loan scheme. Most Members would join me in doing that for common decency alone.

I do not propose to labour the details of the scheme today - Members have heard me talk about it often enough. They can read the details in the Hansard of 5 December 2000, or they can read one of the many recent articles in the press. The Minister has appointed consultants to look at this, and I want to convince the House that we need to act on it. Where is their report? We have been waiting fifteen months, and that is too long. We must not be like Nero, fiddling about while Rome burns.

I want to add some important provisos to the scheme that was set out in December 2000. We must tie the implementation into restrictions on production. Farmers are sometimes obsessed with producing more and more. What is the point of producing more, if it cannot be sold? That only drives the prices down. During the Northern Ireland Institute of Agricultural Science conference it was said that only 22% of farmers saw a need for radical change towards a market-oriented entrepreneurial culture, and that is very worrying. One of the main reasons identified for the failure of farmers is that they do not live in the real world.

The Government are sending out confusing signals. We must have a 10-year business plan for agriculture in addition to the early retirement and farm loan schemes. They are essentially two sides of the one coin, and they go hand-in-hand.

That 10-year plan cannot be definite. What can be definite in this fast-moving world? However, the plan must "best guess" the direction that world agriculture will take by using the most sophisticated tools available in market trends analysis and market intelligent methods. That is a major task.

Although the plan cannot be prescriptive, it must give farmers an idea of the realistic market options available in the next 10 years so that serious and viable planning can take place in agriculture. Only then can a proper investment climate be created. It is the duty of the Government to give a lead. However, the issues are of such dimensions that the matter should be taken on by the entire Northern Ireland Executive and not just by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Given the importance of the agrifood industry as well as the agriculture sector, this is a strategic matter for the entire Northern Ireland economy.

Two avenues are open to us with regard to the financing of an early retirement scheme. Fifteen months ago, in my original submission to the Minister, I demonstrated how the scheme could be self-financing. If loans were restricted to those farmers with indebtedness of over £20,000, that would put some £1,440 million into circulation. The total capital asset value of Northern Ireland farms is over £10·5 billion, a massive sum, compared with the total farmers' indebtedness of some £700 million, that is less than 7% of the capital asset value of the farms. The scheme's best feature is that it would lock the capital asset value of Northern Ireland farms at normal interest rates, which would earn the banks or financial institutions charged with the administration of the scheme some £42 million a year. The scheme itself would cost some £20 million a year to operate in the first five years, and after that the costs would diminish significantly.

Surely it is not beyond the imagination of man or Minister to tell the banks that they would generate a massive sum by simply operating the scheme and that they would be expected to plough a significant part of that back into the industry. Given the sheer volume of business, it might be possible for the banks to pay the total cost and still pocket profits of £22 million a year.

Another option might be to redesign the regional policy of the United Kingdom, using Northern Ireland, as has been done on many occasions, as a test case, to bring the scheme in on the back of a permitted soft loan European strategy within the constraints of the European Union's Agenda 2000 regulations.

This is a matter for the entire Executive, because the issues raised involve a significant level of expenditure and strategic planning decisions. We must position ourselves in the world market in a way that ensures viability in farm size and efficiency. Adequate business planning requires imaginative leadership, and now is the time for that. Many stories have been told about what happened to the agriculture industry. Having listened to the previous debate on health, agriculture must not get itself into the same position. We are all aware of the crisis facing the Health Service. I hope that the proposal will be examined comprehensively and that with a common-sense approach, the agriculture industry can be brought back onto a level footing.

So inspiring has the Member been, that there are now twice as many Members who wish to speak on the list as there were when he opened the debate. I have, therefore, no option but to put a limit on the speaking time available to Members, which will be eight minutes.

That is not a minimum requirement for Members who wish to speak, but a maximum requirement. That limit does not apply to Mr Savage, who moved the motion, or to the Minister who will have the usual time for their winding-up speeches.

I support the motion, but I do not imply that nothing has been done or achieved by the Minister or the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. First, we should look at when the downward spiral in farming began. The mid-1990s - 25 years into direct rule - was the beginning of the end for many farmers. The Minister, the rest of the Executive and the Agriculture Committee have worked to deliver new hope to the farming industry, but in the three short years since it became locally elected people's responsibility to address our problems, we have had the disruption of foot-and- mouth disease.

I attended an Ulster Farmers' Union meeting on Tuesday night, and I was asked to convey publicly, on the union's behalf, its gratitude for the Minister's efforts during the foot-and-mouth disease crisis. Since November 1999, the House has experienced periods of suspension, so much has been achieved in a few working months. As a member of the Agriculture Committee, I am fully aware of the tremendous amount of work that has been done to get the agriculture industry working again. The Minister, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee have worked together on many important issues. Since November 1999, small farmers who were neglected for more than a quarter of a century have finally been recognised. Milk producers with a quota of less than 250,000 litres were given additional quota. The 90-head limit on the beef special premium (BSP) was removed, and new protection measures were introduced for producers with fewer than 30 heads of cattle. A new milk scheme was introduced, and beef national envelope funds were revised and split sixty-forty between suckler producers and heifer producers.

Benefits for the long-term survival of the industry inevitably come about as a result of the cross-border animal health programme that the Minister is pursuing. The introduction of the new beef quality initiative will also ensure that Northern Ireland produce is of the best quality. A vision group was established, and its action plan should be up and running by June 2002. Work is under way to secure a future for the next generation and, as the Deputy Chairperson of the Committee has said, it is the hope of many, including myself, that developments will include a combination of a new entrants' programme and an early retirement scheme.

Many other developments have taken place that are in the interests of the farming industry and broader rural issues. Those include: the reduction of red tape; the securing of funding; the backing of rural development; the Minister speaking up in Europe; support for the fishing industry; and the securing of regionalisation for Northern Ireland during the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. So much was achieved in a short time. I support the motion, but rather than ask the Minister to consider the implementation of measures to sustain viability, I ask that she continue to implement measures that will allay the concerns of all who are interested in the future of the agriculture and fishing industries for the betterment of rural society overall.

Having only a minute until Question Time, I propose that the House takes its leisure for that time.

Oral Answers to Questions

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Question 7, in the name of Mr McGrady, question 10, in the name of Mr Dallat, and question 20, in the name of Mr Gibson, have been withdrawn and will receive written answers.

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1.

asked the Minister of Education to detail what action he has taken and any plans he has made to promote new vocational GCSE examinations.

(AQO 972/01)

The Minister of Education (Mr M McGuinness): The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) will offer new vocational qualifications known as GCSE double awards from September 2002. A series of seminars and workshops have been arranged to ensure that staff in schools and support agencies are fully prepared. Promotional posters, teacher and pupil information packs, and fact sheets covering each vocational area will be widely distributed. Information will also be available on the CCEA web site.

The leading examination boards - Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR), Edexcel and CCEA - have all announced the launch of new GCSEs in vocational subjects to replace the existing GNVQs in an effort to give parity of esteem to practical subjects such as engineering, manufacture and design. The Westminster Government plan to designate 1,500 schools as specialist engineering schools with additional funding of £100,000 each - over £300 extra per pupil. Will the Minister extend this scheme to Northern Ireland in an effort to enhance and promote the strong tradition of engineering and manufacturing education in the Province?

I am prepared to consider the scheme of which the Member speaks. I have no first-hand knowledge of it, but when I have more information I will give it consideration.

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2.

asked the Minister of Education to outline (a) when he intends to publish the findings of the teachers' health and well-being survey; and (b) what action he intends to take as a follow-up.

(AQO 967/01)

The draft report, which was commissioned by management side of the teachers' salaries and conditions of service committee, should be ready by the end of this month. It will be published after management side has discussed the findings with teachers' side. While the follow-up action will depend on the findings, my Department, the employing authorities and teacher representatives will be giving a high priority to the report's recommendations on a strategy for improving teachers' health and well-being.

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. The Minister has covered part of my supplementary question. Does he have any idea, from what is in the draft report now, whether the present arrangements need to be improved?

The employing authorities already provide a range of in-house services to teachers, including formal arrangements with agencies providing specialist help in areas such as bereavement and relationship problems. The report will identify ways in which the present arrangements can be improved as necessary.

Does the Minister accept that stress is one of the main causes of the high levels of teachers' absence through sickness? It cost the education budget over £15 million in 2000-01. Therefore, urgent action is needed. Can the Minister tell the House what action he intends to take to deal with this problem?

The work that has been undertaken and the draft report, which will be ready by the end of this month, will deal with all of the issues of which the Member speaks. Then it will be a matter of the management side and the Department of Education giving due consideration to all of those issues. The issue of teacher stress and welfare is one that I regard as a top priority in my Department. I have met many representatives of the teachers' unions, and I am aware of their concerns. The report will go some way towards addressing their concerns.

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3.

asked the Minister of Education, pursuant to his announcement on 12 September 2000, to outline the procedures that are necessary to enable youth club committees to avail of finance to refurbish their premises.

(AQO 952/01)

The extra finance that I announced on 12 September 2000 was for a facelift scheme to allow youth clubs to refurbish their premises. The funding was available through the education and library boards. The scheme ran during the year 2000-01, and £500,000 was released, although the initiative was heavily oversubscribed.

In September 2001 I announced that I had secured substantial additional funding of £1·5 million each year over the next three years from the Executive programme funds. That funding is to be used for health and safety works, improvement schemes, including better disabled access and the installation of computer equipment. Seventy-four youth organisations have applied for grants so far. I encourage other clubs, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, to contact the Department to avail of the next allocation of funding in the 2002-03 financial year.

Youth club committees are also entitled to apply to the Department for financial assistance at any time under the capital schemes for youth sector. Limited funding is available.

I have just learned about the new funding. Will the Minister confirm that local divisional youth officers are au fait with the new funding? Is there an obligation on them to advise youth club committees in their areas about that funding? Is the Minister depending on those officers to promote the funding?

Further information on the scheme and application forms can be obtained by contacting Youth Services Branch at the Department of Education. This is an open-ended scheme, and applications can be made at any time.

I am interested in this scheme. Will the Minister indicate if funding for youth club committees will be spread equitably? What criteria will be used to ensure that all moneys are allocated fairly to the Unionist community? Have targets been set, and what steps will be taken to ensure that youth clubs in Unionist areas can source the moneys?

There will be equality, and decisions will be taken on the basis of need in individual areas. When I come to Question Time, I always feel regret when people come forward with questions which attempt to sectarianise a vital area of work in education. We had an example of that in relation to the schools capital building programme, and now we have it again. My administration is totally committed to treating people fairly. We have had too much injustice, unfairness, inequality and discrimination in the past - far too much for me to even begin to think that it would be a sensible way forward for my administration.

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4.

asked the Minister of Education what action he intends to take in relation to the proposal by teachers' organisations to hold an independent inquiry into teachers' pay and conditions.

(AQO 971/01)

Following separate meetings with management side and teachers' side on 13 December 2001, I received a letter from teachers' side suggesting that it would be appropriate for the negotiating committee to take forward an inquiry into teachers' salaries and terms and conditions of service. Under the proposal, both sides would agree the terms of reference, the personnel and the timescales. They would also receive the report's recommendations for negotiation in the normal way.

I arranged for senior officials to meet with teachers' side on 25 February to discuss the proposal. The next step is to complete discussions with management side on teachers' side's proposal and to reach an early decision.

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive answer. Does the Minister support the teachers' proposals for an inquiry?

Mr M McGuinness: The approach proposed by teachers' side seems to be a reasonable way forward, but I will await the views of the employing authorities before making any final decision.

The Minister informed the Committee for Education on 16 January 2002 that he would make a decision regarding an independent inquiry shortly. We are still waiting. Can he explain the reason for the long delay, which is totally unacceptable, given that the issue was first raised in July 2001?

The recent proposals from teachers' side were significant. My Department had to examine them before they could be discussed with management side. I hope that the issue can be dealt with expeditiously.

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5.

asked the Minister of Education to detail (a) the number of staff from PricewaterhouseCoopers who worked on assignment or secondment to his Department or to the education and library boards during the past five years; (b) the cost of the total fees paid by his Department and/or the boards to PricewaterhouseCoopers; and (c) what percentage of total consultancy work allocated by his Department and the boards went to PricewaterhouseCoopers over the past five years.

(AQO 955/01)

Today I replied to the Member's original written question, which asked for the same information. In the letter that accompanied that reply I apologised for the unacceptable delay in providing that information. For Members' benefit, I will place a copy of that correspondence in the Library.

I thank the Minister for his answer and for the details of his letter. Was that consultation work obtained through the proper, open tendering process?

I explained in the letter that the information requested by the Member was not available in a readily accessible form. Although it was relatively easy to ascertain how much money was paid in fees to individual consultancy companies by the Department, it was less easy to obtain that information for the five education and library boards. When the data was received from the boards, it had to be cross-checked with data obtained from departmental sources to ensure that information was not counted twice.

There were also delays in establishing information on the numbers of consultants, as that could not be determined without undertaking a major exercise at a significant cost in staff resources. In addition, as my letter states, some of the key papers were mislaid by one of my officials, and that caused further delay.

The answer to your question about tendering is "Yes".

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6.

asked the Minister of Education if he intends to initiate a programme similar to the green schools programme operated by the Dublin Government.

(AQO 969/01)

The green schools programme is one element of the European-wide eco-schools programme. I am pleased to say that over 120 schools here have already registered in the eco-schools programme since its inception.

Does the Minister agree that the schools programme in the Southern part of this island is a superb example of improving environmental awareness at an early age? No doubt the Minister can see, as I do, increased opportunities for significant North/South links, and, perhaps, the potential for an Irish language edition of the eco-schools programme.

Absolutely. There is no doubt that over 750 schools, both primary and secondary, are registered with the programme operated in the South by An Taisce - the National Trust for Ireland. There is significant interest in environmental issues here also, as can be seen from the number of schools that have registered with the eco-schools programme.

The current review of the curriculum also provides an important opportunity to define how all subjects, particularly geography and science, can provide scope and opportunities for young people to become responsible custodians of their environment.

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8.

asked the Minister of Education what percentage of fully funded pre-school nursery places are available in each board area.

(AQO 966/01)

Complete data for the current school year are not yet available. However, for the year 2000-01 the percentages based on the three-year-old population are as follows: Belfast 90%; Western 73%; North Eastern 66%; South Eastern 65%; Southern 71%; and the overall figure was 72%. It is anticipated that, during this academic year, places will be available overall for at least 85% of the cohort.

In his response to a previous question, the Minister talked about equality and treated with disdain those who asked questions about fair treatment.

It is clear from the figures he has given that schools in the Unionist community that are within the North Eastern Education and Library Board and South Eastern Education and Library Board areas are being discriminated against. In Downshire, which is in my constituency, only around 25% of children are being offered pre-school places. When are children in rural constituencies in those board areas going to get fair treatment and equality and be offered the pre-school places that they have been denied? Schools, including Riverdale Primary School, that have requested pre-school places have been denied that opportunity by the pre-school education advisory group (PEAG).

In formulating their development plans, PEAGs are required by the Department of Education to give particular regard to the needs of rural areas. Prior to the expansion programme, the level of provision tended to be lowest in those areas. However, while there is a good network of nursery schools and units, pre-school playgroups and private day centres, local circumstances may be such that it is simply not possible for the intended level of coverage to be reached in some rural areas.

In some areas of the Lagan Valley constituency it has not been possible to achieve the intended level of coverage. That is largely due to local circumstances. For example, I am aware of one large village in Lagan Valley where none of the existing playgroups has applied to be allocated pre-school places. That operates to depress the overall level of coverage that can be achieved in that area. The Department is working with the South Eastern Education and Library Board PEAG to investigate what can be done to increase the level of provision in such situations.

I am also aware that there has been much discussion about the issue of statutory settings, which are established in the controlled and maintained sectors. I am aware of the view that decisions about the funding of new statutory provision have discriminated against the controlled sector. Both sectors have benefited from the creation of new nursery provision under the pre-school education expansion programme.

There are other initiatives, such as Belfast Regeneration - formerly known as Making Belfast Work - and the EU special support programme for peace and reconciliation. There are currently 155 controlled, 95 Catholic maintained, 13 grant-maintained integrated and one non- Catholic maintained nursery schools and units in a total of 264. A further 33 new projects of all management types are currently being developed. I emphasise that all pre- school education provision is open to all children. There is considerable integration of attendance in that sector.

The issue must be dealt with in its proper perspective. The Assembly must acknowledge that in certain circumstances there are particular individual situations that do not reflect the overall picture.

Can the Minister clarify whether the fully funded pre-school places are full-time or part-time? How is that provision monitored and evaluated in order to ensure that adequate standards are achieved across all areas?

Pre-school provision is monitored by the PEAGs, which are attached to the five education and library boards. It is monitored consistently. The Department of Education takes a keen interest in that. Our perspective is that it is essential to provide as much provision as possible. The progress that has been made in the last several years has been rapid. The provision is monitored and inspected. If people want to ask specific questions about specific circumstances, possibly peculiar to their own constituencies, the Department will be happy to answer those questions.

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9.

asked the Minister of Education what assessment he has made of the relationship between the abolition of academic selection and the abolition of the 11-plus test.

(AQO 1012/01)

I welcome the Member's question, because it is at the heart of the current debate on post-primary arrangements. The 11-plus test exists only because Northern Ireland has a system of post-primary education that allows grammar schools to select the pupils that they want and reject the rest.

There is clear demand for the abolition of the test, but that cannot happen unless decisions are taken on the key issue of academic selection. Retaining academic selection and abolishing the test would require some other form of selection by grammar schools. Whatever system is used, it will perpetuate many weaknesses that have been identified by research into current arrangements.

Will the Minister accept that statements he has made in the House and in public to the effect that it is important to realise that the abolition of the 11-plus test cannot take place unless academic selection is also abolished are, in fact, inaccurate? Will he also accept that it is possible to have academic selection by other means?

The consultation process, which ends on 28 June, provides a golden opportunity for people to make suggestions. I have made it clear from the outset that I want people to respond to that consultation and to give their views on the Burns proposals. I have also invited people to suggest modifications and alternatives for consideration by my Department.

Today I launched a video and other consultation materials as a vital aid to discussion. This is the most comprehensive consultation on any issue since the Assembly's establishment. However, research by Prof Tony Gallagher, Prof Alan Smith, Save the Children and Prof Gardiner clearly states that new arrangements should not perpetuate the weaknesses that have been identified in their research. That is a danger.

However, the consultation is meaningful and real and offers a real opportunity for the entire community to have a say in future arrangements. We do not have a modern education system of which we can be proud. We must recognise that the arrangements put in place over 50 years ago were relevant to the last century. That system is not relevant to the needs of our children, be they from the Shankill Road, from the Bogside, from the Falls Road, from Ballymena or from Portadown. We must face that reality.

People must also face the crux issue of academic selection. We must confront the facts; only 2% of children from the Shankill Road have a grammar school education, and only 8% of children who attend grammar schools come from disadvantaged areas. Those are huge issues.

I appeal to everybody, both in the Assembly and outside, not to become involved in conflict or division on this issue. Everyone has a duty and a responsibility to rise above that. This is about more than structures; it is about putting children at the centre of our thinking and establishing an education system that will allow them to believe in themselves and to succeed.

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I agree with the Minister that we must focus on prioritising children. Putting children first, rather than putting them forward as failures at 11 years old, is the key to the debate. Does the Minister acknowledge that academic selection is, in fact, academic rejection for the majority of children?

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