Platform:I wonder just how much attention will be paid to Peter Sutherland's blistering attack last week on our record in investing in education, writes Feargal Quinn.
In fine myth-busting form, Sutherland attacked the frequently invoked mantra that Irish education is the best in the world and that what we are doing now is enough to equip us for the future.
His remarks were very much in tune with what I said in the Seanad in our debate on the recent Budget.
While I applauded the Minister for Finance's commitment to deliver the National Development Plan, I pointed out that the priority investments in that plan are not the most important needs which the State now faces.
Roads are, of course, important, as they have always been, so are the other aspects of transport. But they are no longer the most important priority in getting Ireland ready for the future.
As I have been saying over and over again in recent times, our number one priority now should be investing adequately in education.
Education certainly does get a look-in the National Development Plan, but not to anything like the required extent.
If we are to prepare the nation properly for the medium and long- term future, we must realise that in that future we must live by our wits - and the only way we can increase the quantity of our wits is by investing heavily in the education system at all levels, from pre-school to post-doctoral research.
Everyone in Ireland pays a lot of lip service to education as the magic bullet, but, as Sutherland points out, we do not yet put our money where our mouth is. Until we do, we are not taking the future seriously.
If we continue to under-invest in education we are creating a cast-iron guarantee that this State will not reach its full potential. Indeed, without the investment that I call for, the economic outlook is inevitably bleak.
Education has never lacked advocates, but the overall cause has been weakened by the fact that most people who call for more investment are pushing their own sector.
Similarly, at ministerial level successive ministers have regarded one or other sector as their pet and have diverted spending there at the expense of others.
While some ministers have been effective in persuading their colleagues to invest in education, the problem is that they have set their sights much too low.
This has fooled some people into believing that our spending in this area is now adequate. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact is that every single sector of our education system is still grossly underfunded no matter how you spin the figures.
All the way from pre-school education (which is largely ignored by the State), through primary and secondary schooling, to under-graduate teaching and post-graduate research, we need a massive infusion of funds if we are to realise our ambitions.
We under-spend by comparison with our peers in the EU or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and we certainly underspend in relation to the heady aspirations we repeatedly assert for our education system and our economy.
Regardless of the temporary budgetary difficulties we may be passing through, we urgently need to find the money to invest properly in education.
When I say that we should declare education to be our number one national priority, I mean exactly that.
We will not attract future investors to this State by our roads network no matter how important it still is to upgrade that network. We will attract future investors not by our roads, or even by our tax system, but only by the calibre of our people.
The calibre of our people in the years ahead will be directly related to the amount we invest in educating them. That is a simple fact, but one that we have allowed to be obscured by competing calls on our attention.
And we simply do not invest enough. From that point of view, the recent Budget must be seen as a lost opportunity.
Hopefully, Sutherland's trenchant intervention will be seen as the wake-up call that it is.
