Professor Kathleen Lynch:

I am conscious of the fact that I have only three minutes. I practised my presentation with that in mind, which I have never done before in my life. I will try to be precise. I thank the committee for the invitation to contribute. I wrote a background paper, with the help of Dr. Margaret Crean, which identifies three levels which must be addressed in terms of policies for vulnerable groups. These are the macro level of the State policy; the meso or medium level of institutions like the ETBs, schools as organisations, the Teaching Council and teacher education; and the micro level of the family. My opening statement focuses on the macro level.

Ireland, whether we like it and despite our recent advancement, remains am economically unequal society at its extremes - the top 10% and the bottom 10%. We have a large low wage economy, at 21%, which is higher than in many other European countries. This means that we have huge numbers of people on low wages who often cannot access education on equal terms with others. With regard to vulnerable groups, I will refer briefly to those with disabilities, because Ms Heelan did. A study of people with disabilities by Ms Bernie Grummell and her colleagues at NUI Maynooth found that it is more middle class people who gain access to the university. I am not surprised because they have had to overcome the barrier of disability. Economic inequality has an impact on everyone, particularly vulnerable groups, including lone parents, although not everyone who is a single parent is poor. It is important to remember that. Likewise, not every refugee is poor. However, poverty and economic inequality are the common denominators among those who are disadvantaged.

In terms of making recommendations, we must have a concept of equality education proofing in terms of fiscal, housing, health, transport and other policies that impact on education. That concept is not beyond the bounds of possibility. We must also consider the intersectionality of inequality. No group is singular in its identity. For example, someone who has been in care has a care identity which often creates an effective inequality in the deprivation of care. This is described in page 17 of my submission. This is often also associated with multiple other deprivations because those who have been in care are often poorer and had no power or control over their own lives when they were children. Such people are not singular in their identity. They are not only boys or girls, or only young or old. When we talk about policymaking, therefore, we must not treat groups, including vulnerable groups, as if they are singular in their identity.

As a result of that, education is a competition for advantage in an unequal society. That is how it works, whether we like it or not. Those who are most resourced culturally, not just economically, in terms of social networks and social capital are most advantaged. We must recognise that and try to address it.

The point I am making is a theoretical one about the relational nature of inequality. In this competition for advantage, we have employed, as has Europe, a liberal equal opportunities framework. That is welcome and important. It gives everybody an equal formal right. However, giving everybody such a right often only gives us a right to it; it does not enable us to access it. I have argued in the paper for the importance of equality of condition as a concept. It is not that we would not have equality of opportunity, but in an unequal society, the compelling evidence is that we do not have it. The most recent research published by Dr. Delma Byrne and Dr. Selina McCoy inAmerican Behavioural Scientist shows that over the generations in Ireland the relative class privilege has been maintained, which is hugely significant. We have done great things in education in Ireland but that is a problem.

The big issue that is emerging in the international literature is not that we do things that badly in school and college - we do much that is good - but the role private money is playing in creating economic inequality in educational attainment. If people have a salary of €100,000 after tax and somebody else has a salary of €15,000, they will use their private resources to advantage their own children in an unequal society. There is a sociological law, just as there is an economic law, which we often forget. People will do that. The more inequality we have, the more people will buy services on the private market. I refer to Irish and music, two concrete examples from the leaving certificate. If one is not in an Irish speaking family it costs nearly €1,000 to send one's child to the Gaeltacht for three weeks a year to become proficient in Irish. It costs almost the same to get a class of an hour a week for 30 weeks for one's child to become proficient in the performance of music. Those public examinations depend, for 50% in each case, either on oral proficiency or on musical performance. Those who do not have money are severely disadvantaged. That is very important. It is why I talk about the importance of equality of condition and the link between taxation, fiscal and other policies.

I wish to make a few points about the meso level. We need to support equality of condition and new thinking in education. I gather the Education (Disadvantage Committee) Bill 2017 is before the House. Under that legislation, as with the Education Act 1998, the only people who have to be considered in setting up the committee are the patrons, parent bodies, national bodies, management bodies and trade unions. Civil society organisations that represent the vulnerable at grassroots level, like the people appearing at this meeting, should have a place in framing that legislation. Equally, the same should arise with the Education Act and perhaps that might be amended at some time.

In addition, we need national statistical data. Between 2003 and 2011, many of us wrote about having national statistics that are disaggregated not just by gender. For the leaving certificate and the junior certificate, at the very least, we should have all groups such as children who are deaf, who have various different disabilities because they are not all the same, Travellers, children who have been in care and all that information-----