Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending. One reason I was looking forward to this conversation was that, in the northern context, we believed this committee could determine how it could be of benefit in the educational sphere. The Minister has touched on many of the issues already. When analysing some of the areas we have been to and some of the issues that underpin sectarian tensions in the North with a view to overcoming them, education arose time and again as the great liberator, the one thing that will help youths and others who have experienced conflict to bounce back, regardless of their circumstances. How can we be of benefit to the institutions in the North? Can we share experiences, particularly regarding educational disadvantage? Conflict tends to happen in areas of social and economic deprivation and tends to be something that poorer people engage in. Particularly in the North, victims have tended to be from a lower socioeconomic status.

Will the Minister elaborate on literacy, oral language skills, numeracy and the area-based strategies that the Department of Children and Youth Affairs is trying to roll out in the South? I wish to ask about the capacity to share experience in respect of areas of the North that are mirrored in the South, and areas where there is deeply entrenched disadvantage. We must examine the capacity to empower parents. The problem with schooling is that children do not live in schools. There is a limit to what a teacher and a school can achieve in giving children basic skills to survive in life. It is a question of empowering parents also. The tragedy with the Irish education system, both in the North and South, is that schools are used as an enforcer of identity, not just as educational institutions. Children are sent to a particular school because it espouses the identity with which their parents feel most comfortable. Parents feel their child's identity can be enhanced in the school, and this is almost the priority. We have had an interesting discussion on the motivation of Catholic and Protestant parents in respect of their children. There is deep suspicion regarding integrated schooling. I noted this on both sides of the divide in the North. I found this interesting because, from the outside, integrated schooling might appear to be an obvious move to make. In the North, it is not as popular. What capacity have we to share experiences? What can we learn from what is happening in the schools system and wider community in Northern Ireland? The Minister referred to the preschool experience. How can we learn from the Northern Ireland experience?