Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, am delighted to be able to speak to this legislation and I welcome the Minister's speech. As he said, the basic aim of the Government is to use our economic success to build a fair and compassionate society, and few areas are more important to this vision than education. The Minister also stated that the Government's ambition is for the action plan for education is to provide Ireland with the best education and training system within a decade. The action plan is very ambitious, and I wish it well. We need highly educated and versatile young people, especially to deal with our jobs, economic future and all other issues.

The Minister stated that the Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 is a significant public service reform designed to make it easier for parents to more easily access local schools. The parents' and students' charter will for the first time set out the principles to guide how schools engage with students and their parents.

For the first time, any person, including a member of the public, an employer or a teacher will be able to make a complaint to the Teaching Council about a registered teacher. Complaints will be possible under a number of headings, including professional misconduct and poor professional performance. That is very welcome. Speaking as a parent first, but also as a former member of a board of management of a national school, a secondary school, a VEC college and, before that, a technical school that was amalgamated, I believe there are issues for parents and guardians but especially for students. The vast majority of teachers are excellent, do a good job and do their very best to impart their knowledge to the students, but there are bad teachers. That is an issue that came up during the recent days of strike action. Teachers turned up for work and were locked out, but there was not an all-out strike.

We all have experience of contingency planning if we are honest enough to admit it. I have kids who went through a variety of schools in the education system but for the money spent on grinds, they would not have been achieved the results they achieved. One then sees that same bad teacher proclaiming how good his or her class did but it is a pure fallacy and a travesty because the families, who are hard-pressed enough, had to pay a fortune in grinds to get their kids through the examinations. This is recognised in the school, in the system and in the area, but nobody can deal with it. Like any system, one cannot have all good people. There will always be bad apples. I apologise for my parlance, but there are poor performers in any occupation. However, teaching is vital. There needs to be an avenue here and in the context of any future pay talks. There must be some way of addressing or redressing this imbalance because, as I said, the vast majority of teachers strive to do a great job. However, more and more are probably in the wrong profession. I sat on a board of management with someone who was a principal for years who was impossible. That school was badly run. Frivolous complaints or cranks should be entertained but only those where there is a known reason for the complaint.

I do not know how the Department will deal with complaints and we do not want frivolous complaints either.

The Minister stated the Bill will increase transparency and fairness in school admissions, making clear that every school must be welcoming of every young person, regardless of colour, abilities or disabilities. He indicated it will help end the soft barriers that some of our schools erect in the way of children with special needs. That is a vital aspiration as people with special needs must be embraced. When the Minister and I were young - it is not today or yesterday - we were afraid of people with special needs and did not understand them. I would say so anyway but perhaps the Minister might think differently. I did not understand them and neither did my parents and others. There is much more understanding and acceptance of people all created by one God, born with whatever limited abilities or disabilities. It is very important that schools are not allowed to deny people the right to education because of their disabilities.

The Minister stated that publication of the Bill reflects a commitment outlined in the programme for Government to publish new schools admission legislation, taking account of current draft proposals and addressing issues including publication of the school enrolment policies, an end to waiting lists, introduction of annual enrolment structures and transparency and fairness in admissions for pupils and parents. I took part in the programme for Government talks and we were there for a long time. This issue was discussed and I did not hear the baptism rule, clause or barrier mentioned once. Is mór an trua that some of the Deputies that did not attend the talks, would not engage and did not want to be in the Government wish to be able to criticise every piece of legislation. They want to throw the baby out with the bath water and they want anything to do with Catholic or minority religions abolished without acknowledging the tremendous work done for decades by the sisters, brothers, priests, lay people and teachers. Without them we would not have had an education system.

It is easy now to rev up here and forget the past when it suits us. There were horrific issues and they had to be dealt with. I was a member of a number of boards, I have gone through the system and my children are going through it now. In the main the education imparted was top class. We would be a much poorer country but for the Christian Brothers in Cluain Meala. The Minister came to Clonmel agus fuair sé bean chéile álainn. We are delighted with that and that is the way we should be in Ireland. There were no barriers out around Jacksons Cross keeping the Dubs out of Clonmel at that time. The Minister was in Meath at that time so perhaps he was classed as a country fellow like Deputy Thomas Byrne from the plains of Meath. We had brothers and sisters in the likes of Loreto and Presentation schools and they did tremendous work. They should be recognised by this Dáil and the State for the work they did and commitment they had.

The same principle should apply to hospitals. If we had matrons now, we would not have half the bedlam we now see. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle will tell me to stick to the Bill but I am sticking to it. Perhaps it is a pre-emptive strike. There was accountability. We have gone around the country and succeeded in having plebiscites or competitions to rename our hospitals. Our own St. Joseph's in Clonmel is an example and it can cost tens of thousands of euro or hundreds of thousands of euro to run a competition, plebiscite or design scheme for a new name for a hospital as whatever we do, we seem to want to get the saint's name off it. It is such a waste of money. We now have South Tipperary General Hospital and the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Ennis. It seems we have to banish all these names, whatever we do. Nevertheless, we have far worse treatment services in those hospitals. They are scenes of chaos and near-anarchy. That comes with our haste to change the name and remove any symbols from any religion. We were told the crib was removed because Muslim and other faiths might be annoyed and hurt but in many cases I know where people from such faiths appealed for the crib to remain. They have no issue with it. We need to pinch ourselves on such issues.

Some of the hard left are so hard they cannot feel themselves; therefore, they cannot pinch themselves. I said this in another debate. They want to banish such issues. To hell or to Connacht or to hell or to Israel or wherever else. We must reflect on where we have come from, how we came here and how we got our education, however limited it might be for many of us. It is the education we received and we were very proud to get it. I was a boy who walked to school and enjoyed my experience. I got a second level education and a very limited third level education. We must reflect on such issues.

I know the Bill is an effort by the Minister and his departmental officials to deal with many issues. I heard Deputy Bríd Smith say her group has another Bill to countermand this one. Those Members do not have a majority in the House so let them introduce their Bill. They also have a Bill to repeal the eighth amendment of the Constitution. They have very limited vocabularies on certain issues for people who have so much education and so many answers to everything. They do not think of consequences for issues like repealing the eighth amendment, as what would we put in its stead?

I will stick with education. The education system has served us well. Beidh fáilte roimh an t-Aire when he comes to Carrick-on-Suir in two weeks to open a wonderful school. For 40 years we have tried to get that complex. The Minister will be enthralled and amazed by the excellence of the work, as well as the community, civic spirit and appreciation in a downtrodden town that has been passed over for industry over the years. It is wonderful, lifting and leading the way. I salute the leaders, vocational education committee members, the former chair of the VEC, the late Councillor Dinny Bourke, as well as the others who fought for it. There was cross-party support, including from Councillor Jimmy Hogan, from the Minister's party, who died two weeks ago. It is a pity as although he saw the school, he will not be there for the opening. It will be a very joyous occasion. We can see what came out of that. I was with the VEC for much of the time fighting with different Ministers to try to get a school that is worth having. It has not all been bad. That facility has been in gestation for the past 30 years or longer. All the people served well and although there were issues, we now have a multidenominational and multicultural population at that school and all the schools in my constituency. People are integrated and welcomed. It is not that all people are locked out because of race, creed or religion. That is not the case, although there are some limited sad cases. That should not be. We can also think of Protestant schools, as it is a minority religion in many cases. They must be protected and included in the small schools scheme; with the closure of that scheme they were under a serious threat.

We must salute, honour and respect the pioneers. I want to a secondary school in Cahir where two men cycled from west Cork and opened a school. It was a private school but it was open to everybody. They imparted a wonderful education with no support from the Department. There are also the people in VECs, including former chief executive officers. We could mention Mr. John Slattery, Mr. Luke Murtagh and many others who did Trojan work. They were reforming in their own right. They were real leaders and visionaries. We can compare them with what we have today. We can also see the costs associated with today's education, similar to hospitals, because of the removal from management of all the church personnel, whether they are sisters, brothers or priests working in religious instruction. It is difficult to replace that. We must make haste slowly and think of from where we came. One is nowhere if one does not recognise from where one came.

There are many good aspects to the Bill but I urge caution in some areas. If the hard left wants to bring in its own Bill, let it do so. When it gets a majority in the House those Members can introduce all the Bills they like. When they are in Government they will have to see who will pay for all these issues. Where will we get the money? The Minister stated that the Bill provides an overarching framework for greater transparency, which is very important, and a consistent school enrolment policy. That is vital. We can consider recent demographic factors and how the Celtic tiger is probably the worst thing that ever happened because of the pressures it brought on enrolments in national schools, as well as preschool, playschool and after school services.

The Minister has provide an explanation by section of the provisions of the Bill, which are noble. A key objective of the Bill and its associated regulation is to improve access to schools for all pupils and that is the most noble aspect of all. Education is a basic right and entitlement. We can see from the examples of Third World countries and places suffering war and famine that education is vital.

The Bill will strengthen our capacity to cater for children who cannot get school places. This is important, particularly for children who are vulnerable or at risk. The Bill will allow the National Council for Special Education and the Child and Family Agency to designate a place. Goodness knows that too many children are at risk for a plethora of reasons. They must be catered for and dealt with extremely sensitively. I wish the Minister well with the Bill. I think I have some experience because I walked to primary school and got the bus to secondary school after free school travel was introduced by Donogh O'Malley - God rest him. I have also been on a number of boards of management.

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