Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I was letting Deputy Cahill know that many of my questions overlap his so if he hangs on, he may get some clarification.

I welcome the Minister. She has had a tough brief since she was elevated and that needs to be acknowledged. She has done sterling work, despite all the criticism that the Department has received in the media and so on. The main motivation has been to get children back to school and we have achieved that successfully so far, so the Minister and her Department are to be commended.

I will start with school transport, as previous speakers have also done. I have been in touch with the Minister and I appreciate her feedback and that from her Department over the past few weeks. As Deputy Cahill alluded to, we are in extraordinary times. This issue recurs every year. I recall last year the then Minister of State, John Halligan, committed to a review of the school transport issue. He is no longer with us so that review fell by the wayside but I hope that, given the problems we have had this year, that review and a root-and-branch reform of the system can be looked into for next year. The school transport system needs to reflect the demand for a bus to go to a specific area rather than getting the metre stick out and measuring how close someone lives to a school. That needs to be reflected in any future policy.

I will touch on what previous speakers have said. As the Minister will be aware, I have a number of villages in my area, including Watergrasshill, Glenville, Carrignavar, Whitechurch, Blarney, Grenagh and Bottlehill. Almost 100 children do not have a bus place in those areas. I understand the restrictions of the service and the responsibilities of Bus Éireann in rolling out that service but, as Deputy Cahill has said, these are extraordinary times. Given it is the year of Covid and the restrictions on capacity, we need to think outside the box. This year, even if it is just taken on its own, additional rooms need to be put in place and additional funding needs to be found from somewhere. The children need to get to school. I urge the Minister, if at all possible, to re-examine the issue.

I refer to the leaving certificate. Similar to the Minister, I was a teacher for many years. While many Opposition members have spoken negatively about various decisions that have been made, many of them were cheerleaders for the predictive grading system. Now that it has happened, they have been the first to criticise. I was a firm believer in the old conventional testing method but that race is run. Now that we are where we are in terms of predictive grading, on the question raised by Deputy Burke, can the Minister provide reassurance for students who sat the exam last year that they will not be disadvantaged this year?

What assurance can the Minister give that this will not be the case?

The issues of substitution panels and staffing levels have been touched on. It depends on the size of the school. Many schools have 600, 700, 800 or more students and many have up to 100 staff. While the additional resources dedicated to substitution and sick leave for teachers need to be acknowledged, in the event that there is a resurgence of the virus over the winter or a bad winter flu, and multiples of the teachers required for cover are also absent due to various illnesses, will the Minister be open to revisiting the matter or supplementing the substitution panels if it becomes necessary? I would appreciate it if the Minister gave me clarity on these points.