Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter because I recall very acutely the events which took place. Our information systems are out of balance with each other and the Deputy's timely raising of this matter is helpful. We have much better long-term weather forecasts and the red alert system, which is relatively new, is certainly much more advanced than anything we had in the past ten to 15 years. However, we have not upgraded the system in terms of school decision-making and I will give the Deputy a particular example. I spoke to a principal in Kerry whose small school, although not that small, was severely damaged in that the roof came off part of it. In fairness to her, whose name I will not mention, she telephoned her diocesan education secretary to find out who was to make the decision or what was the decision, but quite frankly, people did not necessarily know.

We have a public private division in our education system in that the public side of it, controlled from this House, raises the money, sets the curriculum and so on, while the private side is the patron side. The main patron is the Roman Catholic Church which is responsible for 93% of all the primary schools in the country. Perhaps what the Deputy has alerted me to is to have a proper discussion with the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association to put protocols in place because it is not the function of the Department to instruct a school to close for whatever reason, although in this instance it was adverse weather.

Principals do not necessarily want to take that unilateral decision and they certainly need guidance. That is something which could be constructively raised with the new general secretary of the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association, Monsignor Tom Deenihan, to see what should happen. If the weather is bad, the CPSMA should make a decision and contact the principals and the boards of management to give principals the authority to notify parents in sufficient time that it is not safe to bring their children to school.

See this speech in context