On a somewhat related matter, the issue of the Moorhead report was raised last week. To be fair, right across this House, among Senators on all sides, there is a desire to have the report published so we can have a discussion on what is in it. I read the Leader's response last week and he said it should be published, and rightly so. We need the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, to come to the House. I was talking to Councillor Joe Malone from Kilkenny, who is in the Visitors Gallery and is very welcome. The Minister of State, who is from Councillor Malone's constituency, has responsibility for local government. There is anxiety throughout the country to get this report published, for good or for bad, whatever is in it. I do not think it is going to contain what most people want, and I say this as somebody who was lucky to be on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for 12 and a half years. I identify with the issues Senator Humphreys and other Senators have raised in regard to local government. I could talk about the property tax all day but I will not as I will do that on another day.

On the Moorhead report, people need to appreciate that councillors in 2008, 2009 and 2010 took hits. They took a class of PRSI they had never paid before, a 4% super-tax that has been somewhat dealt with in terms of the class S measure, a USC charge of 5.5% and a cut of 25% in their travel and subsistence. This was all taken at the time and most of it was not really reinstated in any meaningful way. Many of us have been councillors in the past and we know councillors work extremely hard, with long hours on top of trying to have family balance, work-life balance, hold down a career and so on. A huge amount of time is put in. Let us have a look at this report. It was promised 21 months ago and there was an interim report last Christmas. Although I will not put down an amendment to the Order of Business without talking to the Leader, we need the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, or the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to come to the House to tell us what is holding it up and when it is going to be published. The Leader is nodding and I thank him for that. Let us get a date for when it will be published or a reason it cannot be published.

I want to comment on the contribution of Senator Ned O'Sullivan. As a sportsman, I reiterate that it is more important to play the ball rather than the man. I have been the subject of a personal attack from one of the Senator's colleagues here, so I would concur with the fact we need to be more proactive on how we debate. We need to learn how to debate properly, rather than making it personalised. The unfortunate thing is that if people decide to make personal attacks on other people, within the Seanad or outside it, they must suffer the consequences as a result.

Those who do so invite personal attacks upon themselves.

I am a former teacher. I did my junior certificate a long time ago. I think Peig Sayers was a young woman when I was doing the leaving certificate. The junior certificate-----

It was the intermediate certificate back then.

There was the group certificate before that.

Even fellows like me studied Peig.

I have before me a sample junior certificate higher level Irish examination paper. I met a group of Irish teachers this morning. Some of the language in the questions is beyond the scope of the young children who will sit the Irish higher level paper. I tested the paper on a couple of capable students who will do their junior certificate next June.

The Senator should do it himself and get someone to check it.

Sadly, my Irish is very limited, partly because of the education system in place at the time which emphasised rote learning rather than learning oral Irish. The sad reflection of where we are going with the changes in the junior certificate-----

The Senator might be better to raise this as a Commencement matter.

The sad thing about the new junior certificate Irish syllabus is that the written paper will account for 90% of a student's overall mark, with 10% being accounted for by continuous assessment. Previously, schools were given an option of 40% of the marks being allocated to an oral exam. The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh, is very enthusiastic about oral exams because he made a significant effort to learn oral Irish when he became Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. I ask the Leader to ask him to come before the House to discuss this matter. If we are to encourage Irish as an oral language, we should do so in schools. If we do not, it will be back to prose and rote learning. There is a question in the sample exam paper regarding a film entitled "A Star is Born". A 14-year-old junior certificate student would not have legally been allowed to see the film because it is restricted to viewers over the age of 15.

Is the Senator referring to the new one or the old one?

The new one.

The remake.

It does not matter. We need to get back to where we ought to be, namely, teaching oral rather than written Irish. I ask the Leader to request that the Minister come before the House to see if he can sort out that problem. He did very well in respect of the problem with history. This is another little task we have for him.