Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Saoirse and Emer. It is good to see both of them again in a different context. I thank them for their work in all the things they do in representing the ISSU as well as their climate justice work. I also thank David.

A couple of things occurred to me. One is that we recently had a report from the NCCA around leaving certificate reform, but much of that is ongoing work. I would love to see how its representatives see the ISSU fitting in to that. As David said, I very much see the education system as a microcosm of society. It clearly is not at present. For one thing, there is segregation based on gender in addition to the issue of the representation of different religions or those who do not practise religion. It is probably based on fear. Even if we look at the percentage for primary school versus secondary school, there is a narrowing at secondary school in some ways in that we are segregating people even more at that stage, as if there is some kind of fear around sex and putting people together at this crucial time in their lives. However, that is where we learn about how to treat each other with respect and understand what consent really is. It is the critical time to be together and understand each other.

I hope the witnesses do not mind I am using first names to put everybody on a level playing field. They are more than welcome to do the same with me. I very much take on board the point that we do not want to overload teachers with more and more. I certainly heard a lot about that kind of pressure as the spokesperson for the Green Party on education. We are talking about this, but also the need for mindfulness and the need for education around climate and so on, which is just adding more and more, but much of this is about culture. I would love to understand the witnesses' thoughts around continuing professional development, CPD, courses as a way to build a relationship between the different generations, how we treat each other in schools and how that flows on to life outside school.

Senator Warfield and I discussed previously how we have not heard very much coming from the Minister for Education around RSE. I assure the witnesses we will have the Minister before the committee at some point, and officials and the NCCA. Anything our guests have that they would like to share with us for us to pass on, we will certainly do that.