Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

The Education (Amendment) Bill 2010 is like the curate's egg; it is good in parts. I welcome any development of VEC involvement in the provision of primary education, as I have always been an advocate of the VEC's achievements in second level education. The ethos and diversity they brought to this sector will now serve many communities well in the provision of primary school education.

Some years ago the VECs got a bad press. Thirty years ago this was a different country. If it were not for the presence of the VECs, many men and women would be in far less favoured positions than they are now. The VECs gave many across the country the ability to secure employment and make a good living for themselves.

In a debate some months ago on an education motion, I was amazed at the common ground held by all Members on all sides of the House, between liberals and conservatives, young and the not-so-young. All Members will agree no matter what education system we have, it must be parent and child-centred.

Neither do I have a hang-up with who is the patron of the school. Some people, particularly in the national press, give the impression that if the Roman Catholic Church could be got out of school patronage, that is 92% of all schools, the effect would be good for the country. Nothing could be further from the truth. I accept that swathes of people have gone away from organised religion and do not attend mass, a matter which is entirely their business. On the other hand, they would still like their children to be educated locally at a Catholic school. There will never be a question of throwing out the baby with the bath water in this regard. However, the House must also ensure those who may wish to have their children educated at another denominational or non-denominational school have all facilities and an even playing pitch provided to them.

This Bill is the first step towards achieving this. While only a few VECs are already involved in primary school education, for many years there have been calls for more VEC involvement in the area. I am delighted the Government has decided to introduce it through this legislation. The education system must be parent and pupil centred. The gaelscoileanna and Educate Together schools have made great strides in education provision over several years, largely due to the fervour of their campaigners. Some of the most remarkable feats I have seen to get schools off the ground have been done voluntarily by these groups. In Galway, I recall some of the gaelscoileanna starting in buildings no better than sheds. Now these very same schools have some of the best facilities. The VECs' track record in second level education means there should be no doubt about the implementation of this Bill's provisions.

A primary school is a place of learning at which people entrust their children with a regime and hope that, as an extension of the home, they will be well looked after and their capabilities fully recognised and realised. It is one thing for a second level school to announce 20 of its students got 600 points in the leaving certificate. While I accept every school should aspire to academic excellence, those at the bottom with 300 points must also have realised their ultimate capabilities so they can move on to the appropriate next step in their education. The VECs have been remarkably good at adult learning and making the connection for their students with institutes of technology. Many thousands of people have jobs today who probably would not have made it if not for their experience with the VEC under one guise or another.

On the boards of management of schools - the ones I know best are those of Catholic schools - we all owe a great debt of gratitude to those people who work for nothing. When something goes wrong they are the baddies in the parish even though they have almost nothing to do with what has happened. It is a remarkable responsibility, even more so when there is trouble in school. If for some strange reason they were written out of the text in the morning who would replace them? Would we be able to get somebody to do it for nothing? A large number of things need to be discussed at this stage. There is a need for an overall policy on this. It is becoming a huge jigsaw. There will be many stakeholders involved and I am not sure that this or any other Government until now had a real handle on where we are going next, given the shift in population and all the things that go with it. There is a huge need to examine the issue.

In the few minutes I have at my disposal, I want to discuss the switch in the Bill which gives responsibility for speech and language services to the HSE and removes any existing Department of Education and Skills responsibility for it. I am totally against this provision. It is wrong. Who is more likely to identify a child with a problem at national school level than a teacher who has been standing in front of him or her since the day he or she arrived in at the age of four? If the teacher is not able to identify what is going on at that stage, who can? There are only three people who are hugely important at that stage of a child's life, the child's parents and the teachers that teach him or her from day one.

I am not an educationalist but I have seen a great deal of education. Many things are not picked up even with the sort of connection the teacher has with a child from day one in junior infants and throughout school. If a teacher, for whatever reason, did not have a connection with the HSE who would do the connecting? The connectivity would be gone. Even with the switch-over if the facilities in future are not better than those we have now it will not be good enough. The Minister of State is a lively local politician and knows that there is not a day in the week where we do not beg the HSE to give the all important few hours for speech therapy to ensure that at the particular stage in the child's life when it is needed it will be worth a great deal when he or she enters adulthood and faces what lies ahead in the big bad world.

There are a few things I like in the Bill but there are a few things I cannot understand and I hope the Minister will explain the rationale behind them to me. A large number of teachers tell me every year that they send out 60 or 100 copies of their curriculum vitae and never got an answer. This has happened across several counties and all over Ireland. The Bill contains a provision that people who do not have the same qualifications, or any qualifications as teachers, as far as I am aware, can get a part-time job or stand in in a school. I cannot understand why that would be enshrined in legislation.

I fully appreciate that there are occasions when a principal receives a phone call from a teacher who was struck down on a Monday morning and cannot not come into work. That principal is then required to find a teacher to take charge of the class. We now have better IT systems and methods of identification of teachers more of whom are unemployed, and the Minister should take another look at the situation. This provision would engender a great deal of anger in many people I know who could not get a job this year.

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