Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is to be welcomed that the amount of the Supplementary Estimate is less than in previous years. On subhead A3, which relates to school salaries, the Minister referred to some of the funding going into a supply panel. Such panels are always welcome. The committee made recommendations regarding the possibility of setting up supply panels to support teaching principals at primary level. Last Thursday, the issue was discussed with the Minister in the Dáil. It would be helpful for schools to be clustered such that every teaching principal would have one day per week to deal with the various difficult administrative burdens they have.

On school salaries, the issue of school secretaries has been mentioned. I fully support equal pay for equal work. Some 90% of school secretaries are employed by boards of management rather than the Department. They are outside the public service pension scheme, many of them must sign on for social assistance payments outside term time and they do not have certainty from year to year. That should be factored into future Estimates.

Every school should have a home-school liaison teacher. The work they do is quite incredible. Since the concept was introduced by Sr. Concepta Conaty, it has made a very positive difference to many schools and communities. It may the case that consideration should be given to supply panels in that regard.

On subhead A9, school transport, the overspend is quite significant. We must help to get our children to school in a safe and secure manner. Every school has a problem with pinch points at school starting and finishing times. Every school has been in touch with its local authority regarding traffic calming and money that needs to be spent to ensure that children get to school safely. The number of cars outside schools always amazes me. When I travel from my home to the Dáil, I must go through a pinch point where there are three schools, one bridge and thousands of children. The Minister can imagine the chaos and the number of cars at the location. It would make far more sense to put our money into approaches such as the safe routes to school programme that was mentioned such that children can walk or cycle safely to school and that our school transport system is opened to those who live a little further away. All Deputies deal with these issues. Many families may not be able to afford a car or a second car. It is wrong that families must have a second car just for the school run. The committee should send an important message in that regard. We need to turn the school transport system on its head and provide a space for every child who needs to access transport. Obviously, that would also involve a cost to the family. In this day and age, the system whereby a child must live 4.8 miles from his or her school in order to access school transport is wrong.

That figure may be incorrect, but it is close to the reality.

Obviously, additional funding needs to be provided for the State Examinations Commission under subhead A11. The junior certificate results were released quite late this year. They were not issued until October as a knock-on effect of the decision to release the leaving certificate results earlier in order to facilitate appeals. All of that is to be welcomed. We understand why an extra cost is involved. Is it possible that we will see all State examination results coming out at an earlier stage? When those who are going into fifth year are making their subject choices, it would be helpful for them to receive their exam results a little earlier.

Subhead A15 brings us back to the prefab situation. It is very frustrating to see so much money being spent on temporary accommodation. Would it be possible for the Department to improve its forecasting to enable pupils to be taught in non-rental or non-temporary accommodation? Provision should be made for permanent school buildings instead. It is particularly frustrating to see this in my own constituency. I am sure all Deputies see it. When commitments and promises are made in respect of schools, the timelines move out all the time for site acquisition reasons or because of other issues. In such circumstances, more money has to be spent on prefabs, which tend to be placed in green spaces. Many schools have quite small green spaces, so it is far from satisfactory for these to be taken over by temporary school buildings. Surely the Department can get it right. Its forecasting needs to be better if schools building projects are to start on time. As the Minister will be aware, over a year has passed since he announced that there would be a new secondary school in the Curragh-Newbridge area of south Kildare. That news was welcomed at the time, but there is no news whatsoever, even with regard to site acquisition, at this point. There are parents who have their children on waiting lists on an ongoing basis. There are more than 100 children on waiting lists for some schools. There are many temporary buildings in some of these schools. They are unable to add to their temporary stock. This is a really big issue.

I will conclude by referring to subhead C4. I echo the comments of Deputy Catherine Martin about the significant investment that is needed at third level. I do not know how the third level sector is functioning as well as it is. Given the likelihood of a hard Brexit on 31 January - none of us knows what will happen - we need to bear in mind that 12,500 Irish students are studying at third level in the UK. We would not be able to absorb such a number of students back into the Irish system. As the Minister is aware, the joint committee had a discussion last week on the granting of university status to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, RCSI. A motion granting such status has since been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas. I wonder whether this new status will have any impact on the moneys that the RCSI is eligible to draw down or on the Department's Estimates. Given that this change of status relates specifically to the medical end of things, I wonder what its impact will be. I ask the Minister to respond to our comments and questions.