Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am disappointed that Opposition spokespersons do not have an opportunity to speak to the Minister they shadow. The way the Government tabled the agenda of the House is a retrograde step. That being said, I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak about the Department of Education and Skills and the Minister, Deputy Quinn. I am disappointed he is not here because he stated that he welcomes criticism and an opportunity to admit where he has gone wrong. I will give him a hand to refresh his memory on where he has gone wrong in recent years as we see it.

Fianna Fáil believes a high-quality education is a basic right for all of our people and that prioritisation and development of our education system must also be at the core of our drive to strengthen and rebuild our economy. Throughout the 31st Dáil, the Fianna Fáil party has put the education of our children front and centre. Our first Dáil motion in opposition debated education and called on the Government to protect the education budget and front-line services. Our very first policy conference after the election in 2011 was devoted to education. Our budget submissions for 2012 and 2013 committed to protecting education and our submission for budget 2014 reiterated this commitment.

I want to acknowledge some positive measures the Minister has taken since assuming office. The establishment of Quality and Qualifications Ireland is a welcome move in streamlining our qualifications and quality assurance framework for further and higher education and one which my party fully supported. I also commend the Minister for progressing plans to reform the further education and training sector by merging the training side of FÁS with our VECs through the passage of the Education and Training Boards Act and the establishment of SOLAS. These are progressive moves which my party fully supported and on which work had been started by the previous Government. I also commend the Minister on initiating work on a schools admissions Bill, which will help bring clarity to school admissions policies throughout the country.

However, on the whole the Minister's performance and track record bear little resemblance to the picture consistently painted in his rhetoric. The Minister likes to portray himself as delivering change and a break with the past in our education system. He has delivered change and a break with the past, especially with regard to his own past commitments. We saw change with the most flagrant breaking of a promise not to increase the third level contribution. This is what change has too often meant with the Minister - changing his mind and breaking his election commitments. The Minister, Deputy Quinn, must take responsibility for the decisions he has taken and explain to the students of Ireland why he is systematically breaking his promise not to increase the student contribution fee. Blaming the previous Government for these decisions simply does not wash. We are not the ones who signed public pledges not to introduce further fee increases in the days leading up to the general election. The Government was elected based on promises it had no intention of keeping. During the election campaign the Labour Party pledged to reverse the €500 increase in the student services charge and the €200 charge for post-leaving-certificate courses which had been introduced by Fianna Fáil. In February 2011, the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, stated that the Labour Party was opposed to third level fees by either the front or the back door. These promises were made in full knowledge of the fiscal situation. Fine Gael and the Labour Party were consistently opposed to increasing the student contribution while in opposition, stating it was unfair on students. Not only did the Minister, Deputy Quinn, break his election pledge, but he has gone much further and will have increased the contribution a total of four times by 2015.

The fact is the Minister, Deputy Quinn, is overseeing the largest increase in student fees of any Minister for Education and Skills.

Sadly it would appear the Minister has no similar intention of reversing his decision to hike the pupil-teacher ratio in small schools. The protection of small schools is a critical issue for Fianna Fáil and we believe that Government changes announced in budget 2012 unfairly targeted rural communities. His policy of introducing phased staffing cuts in small schools with under five teachers is a cause of serious concern in many local communities. The local national school is at the heart of many rural communities across Ireland. Even more than a post office or a sports club, it is where parents, children and families meet five days a week during the school year. It is invaluable in terms of building a sense of community. For a small school to retain a second teacher in September 2014, it will need 20 pupils, an increase of eight pupils or a 66.6% increase on the position that obtained in 2011. A 14% increase is needed to retain a third teacher and a 7% increase is needed to retain a fourth teacher. This is clear evidence the Government is consciously and deliberately targeting small schools. As this attack on small schools is being combined with a hike in school transport costs, not only is the Government seeking to make children travel further to school, it will charge them more for transport as well.

In the decade before 2010, there was a substantial increase in the resources provided to small schools in respect of teacher numbers, teaching support staff and the physical infrastructure, with new or upgraded classrooms and ancillary accommodation. These decisions were made and that investment was made because Fianna Fáil perceives local primary schools as an irreplaceable part of community life. The Government's attack on small schools is a source of great concern, particularly for those from minority faiths. For example, nearly half of Protestant primary schools have fewer than 56 pupils. As Fine Gael and the Labour Party cannot be unaware of this, surely the only conclusion to be drawn is they place a diminished value in comparison to previous Governments on protecting the rights of minorities in the Republic. Rural schools must be given greater flexibility. They are much more vulnerable to changes. A small school's viability could be threatened by the decision of just one family with three children to move house. There also are signs of a double jeopardy effect whereby parents who fear their child will not be able to spend eight years in the same school decide to go elsewhere and it then turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The loss of a school has a dispiriting effect on a community and a detrimental economic effect and jobs also will be lost. Consequently, to protect rural Ireland, communities, jobs and minorities, one must support the smaller schools and Fianna Fáil calls for the reversal of these changes.

I wish to touch on another issue that means a lot to primary schools and the families that attend them, that is, the supports the Government provides towards the cost of book rental schemes. Sadly, the Government appears to have no intention of reversing its highly discriminatory policy of excluding schools that already have commenced a book rental scheme from a new State-supported initiative. The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, announced funding for school book rental schemes amid great fanfare in the recent budget. However, it now turns out that 76% of primary schools, which had the foresight to begin their own book rental schemes, will not see a cent. At the time of the announcement, the Minister neglected to state that he only will provide funding to those schools that have no scheme at present. He will not compensate schools that made sacrifices, cut their budget elsewhere or fund-raised heavily to establish their own book rental schemes. It means that schools that took the initiative in seeking to ease the cost of the school books bill for parents now are being penalised by the Minister, Deputy Quinn. This discrimination also extends to schools that are due to have growing pupil numbers and will need to invest in expanding their book rental schemes. They too will not have access to the new State funding and will be obliged to fund-raise to make the necessary changes to their own scheme. If the Minister truly believes in the value of this policy, he must start to show some flexibility in its operation. Schools that need to make improvements or extend their school book rental programmes must be supported by the State in so doing. Moreover, many of the schools that took the initiative in this regard were those catering for children of families with lower incomes in which the school management, principal and staff realised the cost of school books was placing an undue burden on such families and took the initiative to fund-raise. These are the families which are being discriminated against the most. It was not schools in well-off areas that introduced school book schemes. What kind of message does it send out to schools and parents who take the initiative to improve the facilities for students off their own bat? The actions of the Minister, Deputy Quinn, will discourage such initiative by schools in the future.

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