Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy O'Loughlin and the joint committee on this report and the recommendations therein. We in Fianna Fáil are calling for the enactment of the recommendations.

The ongoing failure to adequately fund the day-to-day running of our schools is having a real and lasting impact on pupils, staff and parents. It is undermining the long-established tradition of free education and must be urgently addressed.

While broad in scope, the committee report attempts to tackle two prime issues - the need to provide additional supports to schools to deliver education and the cost to parents of providing an education. The report addresses, through better planning and staffing, additional supports to maintain and expand green spaces, supports for staff in small schools and back-to-school costs. The issues related to costs for parents should be given priority but they are not.

Some progress has been made on capitation rates but they have not returned to 2010 levels. Work has not been carried out on an independent assessment of the suitability of current rates and no large-scale action has been taken on the issue of school uniforms.

The joint committee is asking a number of questions of this Government and this House - whether the schools building programme delivers sufficient school places to facilitate children attending local schools; whether there is access to and provision of open and green spaces; what the impact is of the workload of teaching principals in our schools; and, of course, the need to address the ever-increasing school costs.

We have consistently raised concerns about the urgency, accuracy and focus of the schools building programme. The committee is putting forward real and meaningful solutions to the problems with the programme.

The moratorium on recruitment of support staff in community and comprehensive schools must be fully lifted. Consideration should be given to the appointment of a fully-funded administrative assistant or other appropriate management body support for school building projects above a certain size.

The additional accommodation scheme should be expanded to make provision for additional accommodation for more deputy principals and principals. Clarity should be provided to schools in respect of the payment of the minor works grant. An inventory of school accommodation should be undertaken.

The Department's schools buildings programme should take into account the provision of special classes for students with autism and other special needs and make the provisions necessary for good planning to ensure that adequate school facilities are provided to meet the added demands on school places where developments are taking place.

Through the Fianna Fáil Party, I have lobbied in the lead-up to the past two budgets on the issue of the workload of teaching principals in the schools. This is a significant problem and it must be addressed. If the Government values rural areas, it will have to ensure that it values the smaller schools with teaching principals that are predominantly, although not entirely, in rural areas. We believe that reform is needed in this area.

Particular consideration should be given to expanding the number of release days to 36, regardless of the school size. Principals should have the appropriate supports to allocate adequate time to undertake their leadership and management responsibilities. Whether it is a one or two-teacher school, or a seven or eight-teacher school, the volume of paperwork and documentation that these principals have to deal with now is immense. In my county of Tipperary, the number of working principals who have stepped down from their roles is significant and if we do not make progress in this area, it will be difficult to get teachers to fill these positions.

Principals of all special schools must be automatically designated as administrative principals. Deputy O'Loughlin referred earlier to a principal in my own county, Ms Angela Dunne, who has 24 staff under her care and is still treated as a principal in a four-teacher school. The workload that principals, such as Ms Dunne, have is immense. We will not have people to fill those roles if this issue is not addressed.

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These autism classrooms have really developed in the past couple of years and are giving children with autism a great chance of equality in the education system. It would be beyond comprehension if a failure of this nature meant we could not give these principals the proper supports they need to be able to do their job correctly.

In respect of the summer works programme, I want to highlight a specific anomaly that came across my desk lately. A school that applied for essential funding in 2016 to carry out necessary health and safety work for traffic and parking on the school property is still waiting for support. We now have the announcement of the summer works programme for 2020. Even though this school was assured it would get funding under the 2016 programme, it has not happened. School principals are now telling me that the emphasis this year is on energy saving investment on windows and doors, which is important, but surely not to the detriment of health and safety issues in schools. I would urge the Minister to take these points on board and ask that he investigate this case if I send him the details. I am sure this is not the only case of schools that had work done under the 2016 programme and have not received support.

The treatment of school secretaries is also an issue that needs to be addressed. They fulfil an important role in the day-to-day work of the school and act as an important support to school principals and staff. Currently their pay and conditions are unacceptable and their status must be regularised. They must receive payment as all school staff do when the children are on holiday and must also have pension rights. In many cases, like the principal and senior staff, the secretary will work on days when the children are not in school. I am calling on the Minister to honour the contributions of our school secretaries and respect the role they play in our education system.

I heard the Minister referring to small schools, the symposium that was held in June of this year, and the ongoing review of smaller schools and the role they play, especially in rural areas. I ask the Minister that there be no reduction in the number of teachers in these small schools while the review he is undertaking is under way. I have had schools contact me because they were worried about a fall in numbers, perhaps of only one or two pupils in the case of two-teachers schools. To drop to one teacher would be a severe blow to their area and locality. While the review is under way I ask that there be no change in the number of teachers in those small schools. They play a vital role in rural areas. A school is a vital cog in the whole rural community. If a two-teacher schools is reduced to one teacher, it makes its position virtually untenable.

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