Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Overall, these Estimates are in many ways a case of running to stand still, with a very little increase in the allocation. It makes one wonder how on earth the last Government announced tax cuts in its last budget. One wonders how they could have been justified other than as an attempt to buy the election. It was evident on all the doorsteps during the election campaign that the public was not fooled by this at all. For the first time ever, people were saying on the doorsteps they did not want tax cuts. They were asking that the Government invest in good, quality public services. Education is certainly in the top three for most people.

Generally, we do formal education pretty well, be it at primary, secondary or third level. In many ways, it is in respect of the non-standard education settings that we fare less well. They need greater attention. In this regard, I am thinking about apprenticeships, adult literacy services, in-career skills development and other areas that really need investment. This area of our education system has the most potential for improvement, in terms of both worker productivity and social mobility. There is no doubt that there is a real need to focus on future provision to meet demographic pressures. IBEC gave a briefing on that today and produced figures that are certainly a matter of concern in terms of the scale of the demographic demands that will be placed on all our public services in the coming years.

A couple of provisions in this year's Estimates are particularly welcome. The first is the increase this year of 2,250 in the number of teachers. It should be noted, however, that this will only reduce the primary school pupil teacher ratio to 27:1. We still have some ground to make up if we are to achieve parity with most of our European partners.

There is considerable concern about the absence of any measure in the Estimates to address the issue of pay and equality. Many Deputies attended today's briefing by the Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, at which the impact of the two-tier pay system for primary school teachers was spelt out in stark detail. INTO noted that a new entrant in 2011 will be more than €100,000 worse off over his or her career and a teacher who started in 2012 will be more than €250,000 worse off over his or her career than teachers who preceded them. This is having a significant impact on retention rates for primary school teachers. One teacher at the briefing pointed out that ten teachers in their school have taken career breaks, most of them to work in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and so forth because these places offer an opportunity to earn substantial sums and allow them to return home and do the normal things one would expect a teacher to be able to do on a teaching salary, for example, buy a house, get married and have a family. The reduction in pay for new entrants is having a significant impact on life choices for many young teachers and forcing them to leave the country to compensate for the loss of income. We will undoubtedly pay a price for this development. The issue of the degree allowance and the need to standardise payscales must be addressed because they will have implications for the quality of teaching, retention and so forth.

Expenditure on capitation has improved by only 4%, or €17 million. This additional funding must be shared among all schools, leaving a shortfall in many schools, especially those in disadvantaged areas which struggle to generate contributions from parents or to raise money through fund-raising efforts.

One of the issues that has been drawn to my attention regarding schools in disadvantaged areas is the serious difficulties they face in obtaining insurance. In some cases, schools will have experienced flooding but it is more likely that break-ins are the problem. The substantial cost of insurance is not recognised by the Department. When schools have no choice but to pay greatly increased insurance premiums, other aspects of their operations suffer as a result. This problem should be recognised.

I am concerned about the 11% reduction in expenditure on capital services. Why has this been done at a time of such serious demographic pressures? According to the Department's figures, the number of children at primary level is set to rise by several thousand, peaking at 600,000 by 2020, while the number of children at second level is set to rise to 400,000 by 2026. Capital expenditure should be increased to provide accommodation but we are doing the opposite.

The target for the number of primary schools with high-speed broadband has been set at 800, which is much too low. There is a two-tier system in place in respect of children having access to information technology. It is not acceptable to set such a low target for the provision of high-speed broadband access.

The allocation of just €4 million for skills development is also a concern. There are serious problems with the lack of apprenticeships, adequate funding for SOLAS and so forth. For example, I draw the Minister's attention to the significant shift away from upskilling and trying to get people who left school early ready to take jobs, towards efforts to have them take up low-paid jobs. The decision to transfer many staff from the education and training boards who engaged in upskilling to JobPath and the Department of Social Protection has resulted in a significant and regressive shift towards forcing adults with low levels of education into low-skilled jobs, rather than investing in increasing their skills and improving their job prospects. I will return to this issue at a later date because it is a problem. The provision of only €4 million for skills development is completely inadequate.

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