The Department of Education and Science has failed to put in place effective strategies to meet important literacy targets, the Fine Gael spokesman on education, Mr Richard Bruton said.
Mr Bruton said the Government signed up to the National Anti-Poverty Strategy four years ago and committed itself to eliminating serious literacy and numeracy problems in primary schools by the year 2002.
He said the Government had failed to achieve this target. He was speaking to the Dublin south-west Fine Gael educational policy forum in Tallaght, Co Dublin last night.