I very much support my Louth colleague, Senator Brennan, in his call for greater attention to be paid to Louth in respect of the Ireland's Ancient East initiative. When Queen Maeve and her husband Aihill were lying in bed in Cruachan in County Roscommon, he boasted about the strength and potency of his white bull and she told him she knew a man in Cooley who had a bigger bull than him, it gave rise to the greatest saga in European history, let alone Irish history.

What relevance has this to the Order of Business?

I enjoyed the bit about Thoor Ballylee. Anything which excludes the Táin saga from the Ireland's Ancient East initiative is wrong. It is a disgrace. We need change and accountability and we need to know why it was excluded and what will be done about it.

We need to know why that was excluded and what is going to be done about it. That saga could be the basis of a great tourism product for Ireland. I fully support what he says. The Táin saga introduced us to Setanta, Ferdia, Fergus Mac Róich and the Gáe Bolga.

Diarmuid agus Gráinne.

We need all of it to be recognised, including Diarmuid agus Gráinne. We could extend it to Slieve Gullion, where Fionn Mac Cumhaill hunted wild boar under a geis, and bring in south Armagh. In an article he wrote for The Irish Times, Diarmaid Ferriter was complimentary about the 2016 centenary commemorations but he also suggested they were an opportunity to revisit the fact that history is no longer a subject in the junior certificate cycle. That was a mistake. According to the Book of Revelations we are all searching for that white stone on which our name, or our identity, is written. History is an important part of our identity. It was a big mistake to exclude history from the junior certificate and I ask that the Minister for Education and Skills reconsider that decision.

On a point of information-----

There is no such thing on the Order of Business. I call the Leader.

-----history is still on the junior certificate syllabus.

It is not a core subject.