Like all those engaged in the education sector, I understand the barriers underprivilege and social exclusion present across our education system. I share the concerns voiced by Roisin Shortall in this newspaper on August 16th. I have read the reports she cites, I know the teachers and pupils she talks about.

Unlike Ms Shortall, however, I do not have the luxury of offering vague solutions. Government happens in the real world, with real pupils and disadvantage. Only clear aims, with clear means of achieving them, can make a difference.

Our aims are clear: to provide education and training of the highest standard, accessible to all citizens regardless of their background. There should be no social impediment to education - our policies are formed to that end.

The Labour Party would claim a monopoly on concern for disadvantage in education and shout the need for social inclusion from the rooftops.

In truth, however, social inclusion has to be more than an amorphous catch-call or political pawn. It has to mean concrete programmes, with concrete funding and commitments from Cabinet. That is where this Government differs from previous governments, and where we are different from the Opposition parties today.

In the education sector, no government has done so much to promote the agenda of social inclusion, to comprehensively tackle disadvantage. In the 1999 budget, we allocated some £57 million specifically to tackle educational disadvantage, as part of a two-year programme that included the first major increase in teacher numbers for years.

One of the first decisions we took when we came to office was to sanction a major expansion of places on the Youthreach and Traveller Training courses. These are targeted at early school-leavers, aged between 15 and 18. Education can remove these young people from the cycle of poverty that affects early school-leavers.

We have provided a series of initiatives aimed at identifying and assisting those children who are at risk of dropping out of school.

We have begun targeting those secondary schools experiencing high degrees of pupil drop-out and, with the establishment of the National Education Welfare Board, we have introduced new welfare officers to work with schools, parents and community groups to focus on children at risk and those who experience difficulties in school attendance.

The fact remains that some 19 per cent of secondary school pupils do not complete their Leaving Certificate. That represents about 12,000 young people who urgently need assistance. There are many pressures on these young people today to work and participate in a consumer-led youth culture. We must convince them to remain in education, build a better future for themselves and break the cycle of poverty.

We've abolished exam fees for the poorest families and introduced major increases in funding for the provision of schoolbooks for more disadvantaged pupils.

Access to college for students from a disadvantaged background has historically been a problem in Ireland.

We have trebled the funding allocated for access programmes to third level and increased the number of college places overall - 4,000 post-Leaving Certificate, 8,000 at third level and 5,000 apprentice places. I don't pretend for one moment that we have solved the problems in this area, but the dearth of policy, commitment and funding that categorised other administrations has been replaced with a concerted drive to open up third level to all.

AS PART of our efforts to promote social inclusion in education, we have also introduced huge increases in funding for programmes promoting equality. From the start of the next academic year, remedial teachers will be available to every school in the country for the first time.

A home/school liaison service will be available for every disadvantaged school. Additional resources have also been made available to the Applied Leaving Certificate Programme.

Measures such as these were necessary and overdue. In 1997, we inherited a system in need of reform. The Rainbow Government had frozen school funding and attempted to cut back teacher numbers, despite increased economic growth that rendered such a move unnecessary.

However, many of the problems we are experiencing today result from 70 years of underfunding. Throughout that time, the excellence of our teachers and the commitment of parents sustained a system which central government could not resource sufficiently. Those days, at last, are over and the challenge today is to use the fruits of our economic performance for the good of all.

I welcome Roisin Shortall's input to the debate on educational disadvantage.

It is a debate we should all engage in, one that should rise above party-political sniping, and focus on the policies and means of eradicating educational disadvantage.

Labour's only concrete input to the debate so far has been to extend the programmes we are already piloting.

For the most part, however, they don't assert policy at all, but merely lament the existence of the problem and advertise their desire to cure it.

The reality of social exclusion and the cycle of poverty demands a far more serious, specific, policy-based approach.

Willie O'Dea is Minister of State for Education and a Fianna Fail TD for Limerick East