Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is where people get loans. It is not illegal or anything like that.

It is €35 to €40 for every €100. I have spoken to people in my community and my friends about this. One parent said they had to borrow €1,100 from a loan shark almost every year around August. They would repay approximately €1,430 over a 26-week period. This is somebody who is on welfare payments. To repay that would cost €55 a week for 26 weeks, and that would probably cover the cost of only one child, so they would have tried to save or meet the other children's needs in another way. There is often a choice of 26 weeks or 52 weeks with loan sharks. Obviously, they knock on one's doors every week, which is not a nice experience either. It is not something that comes out of one's bank account, or that one can keep from one's children. The borrowers get 26 weeks because they will need another loan at Christmas. They are already worried about Christmas so they say they will increase the amount they pay on a weekly basis in case they need help at Christmas. This is the cycle and it does not end. Twice every year, they will do the same and leave themselves in further poverty to meet those two costs.

On top of having to meet those payments, one has the added shame of a loan supplier knocking on one's door each week. One's child is dragged into that space then because one may not have that €55, so one hides in the kitchen in order to send one's child to school because there is a knock on the door and rent must be paid that week. One is hiding oneself and one's children in the kitchen, so the children already feel that shame. What bothers me is that when they leave the shame they feel within the home because they watch their parents struggling, they then go into the classroom and teachers further shame them in the classroom by making them stand up and asking them why they have not paid their book money. One teacher asked a child why their mother could not pay it with the children's allowance which was due the following day. This is the shame which is going on in classrooms. One child went home to her mother and asked if they were poor. An eight-year-old asked their parents if they were poor because they could not meet the costs in school.

There are so many examples of what is happening to children in schools. The sole of a school shoe might start coming off halfway through the year, for instance. Children have been sent home from school until they come back with a new pair of black shoes because they might wear the runners they wear at home. The school is to blame. The managerial boards can say they need to increase funding in the schools, but they can add to their recommendations. In their submission they can add the urgent need to stop the shaming of children in the classroom, or the doorstepping of parents in front of other parents as they drop their children at school to ask them questions about money and funding. That is what the school can control. It can be more sensitive, more aware and more understanding, and it should pass that message down to the teachers in the classroom. Who sends a child home because he or she had to wear runners because his or her mother was waiting to be paid in order that she could buy a pair of black shoes because there was a hole in the old pair and it was the middle of winter? That should not happen, and that is where the schools can take responsibility. I will completely support any school, parents' association, or organisation, and I will campaign and lobby for increased funding in schools, but I will not support the continued shaming and financial abuse of children and parents in the school system. That is something we can take better care of.

I do not have any questions. I have so many examples that have been sent to me and examples from my personal experience and my work in the community sector. My request today is that the people who have direct interaction with the schools, teachers and principals send the message that that is not how business is done. One should not make a child embarrassed to come to school, or make a parent feel so ashamed that the child misses school because the family is waiting for money to come in and the child does not want to arrive at the classroom door anymore because the teacher will ask them if the child has this or that. One parent wrapped her child's schoolbooks in brown paper, as was done years ago, because she remembered doing that herself and she thought it was a cheaper option. Her child was repeatedly told to put plastic covers on the schoolbooks. In primary school workbooks are now used rather than traditional books so there is not even the option to pass the books down to the next child because the books themselves are drawn and written on. We used to have the option that if we bought books we knew the next child and the child after that could have them in a given class. We do not have that option anymore. There are so many areas we can improve on. The naming and shaming of families must be where we start. When that happens parents and schools can work together because the parents will not feel too ashamed to interact with the schools. They can work together to demand free education. My request, especially of the managerial bodies here today, is to send that message to their schools.