I welcome the announcement this week that the Holocaust is to be taught in our secondary schools to junior certificate and leaving certificate students. In welcoming the announcement, I am somewhat concerned that history has been somewhat downgraded in the educational curriculum and that is a pity. Two weeks ago I visited Auschwitz in Poland and as I walked through the Auschwitz camp and was led through what happened there and later that day went through Belsen, I could not help but think about how man's inhumanity to man is re-establishing itself in the Middle East and to see the horrendous treatment of the Palestinian people by Netanyahu and his thugs. It is extremely important that we separate out the Jewish religion from the Israeli Government and its actions and what has gone on in Palestine. I could not, in my heart, find a difference between what happened in Auschwitz and Belsen and what is happening in Palestine today. Okay, they are not being put into gas chambers and they are not being housed for years in horrible situations. One of the things I learned in Belsen was that the best job in the camp was cleaning excrement off the floors because the person doing it was left alone inside in the building and did not have to suffer the guards all day and they were somewhat warm in a situation like that. Then we look at what is happening in Palestine and we see tiny children scrambling through rubble with absolutely no hope whatsoever. Maybe Netanyahu should go to visit Auschwitz and maybe he should realise for himself what man's inhumanity to man actually looks like, because it is horrible and it is absolutely unacceptable that in this day and age, the world leaders are sitting on their hands and allowing it to happen. In light of the fact that yesterday was Holocaust memorial day, I think there is another type of holocaust going on in the world as we speak. I know my colleagues have spoken out quite a lot about it and I know some of them have travelled out there or at least have tried to travel out there and that is to be respected. At the end of the day it is the people in real power who are allowing this to happen. I will leave it at that.