I join Senators Gerard P. Craughwell and Diarmuid Wilson in calling on the Minister for Education and Skills and the teachers' unions to redouble their efforts to ensure there will not be a strike in the run up to Christmas. The last thing pupils, teachers and parents want is a strike. It is obvious that significant progress has been made by the Minister in recent weeks and I hope a satisfactory conclusion can be reached to resolve this unnecessary and unwanted dispute.

I join colleagues in calling for a debate on the Garda Inspectorate's report. I strongly support and applaud the wonderful work done each day by the gardaí at the coal face. They are operating in difficult and dangerous times and they are doing an amazing job. However, the Garda is typical of an organisation that has not been modernised in recent decades, and successive Governments must take the blame for failing to invest in and modernise the Garda systems. The Government is committed to doing this and I have no doubt that it will. The report shows the need for a sea change in policing in Ireland. Very serious systemic weaknesses have shown up in the Garda structure. There is a need for huge investment in new technology, modernisation of crime investigation and operational and support infrastructure. Senator Michael D'Arcy highlighted a major issue that is central to thie report, the poor handling of domestic violence. However, I welcome the Government's commitment to putting a new victim liaison office in every Garda division. The victims of crime are very much forgotten in the general debate and I hope the Government's commitment is honoured and implemented quickly.

I support the well articulated call for a debate on domestic violence. Last Monday, I attended a COPE event in Galway. There are 800 reported cases of domestic violence in Galway this year in which the victims required shelter from their partners or spouses, the abusers. That is the situation at local level. The report from the Garda Inspectorate is excellent and necessary. It is clear the Garda has been working with Dark Ages technology. It is unbelievable that it has been able to do its job at all.

My main reason for contributing this morning is to comment on the dispute with teachers. It must be appreciated that the Minister, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, has gone some distance in offering a very good deal to teachers.

She is now offering 60% external assessment, plus the State examination, with 40% internal assessment by teachers on the basis of continuous assessment. Much of this is going on already. At a committee meeting a number of months ago, I sought a deal of this nature from Deputy Ruairí Quinn, who was then Minister, and he was nowhere near there. The current Minister has been extremely positive in listening to teachers' needs when we consider what she is offering today. In the light of this, I ask the teachers' unions to think again and re-ballot members, because the deal that was refused is very different from the deal that is now on the table. We must appreciate the importance of assessment for learning and, for that reason, teachers should do some assessment. This improves their professionalism. If the children were just a few years older, they would be marking all of their tests in colleges and in further education. Many teachers are impressed with the deal and I appeal to the unions to put it back on the table.