David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I formally congratulate my two new colleagues from Fianna Fáil on their by-election wins. It is great to come into Leinster House for the first time. I wish them well with their careers. Should I have said "their long careers"? I am sure they will, at least, be productive.

I note the presence of a former student of mine, Deputy Buckley. I do not know where I went wrong. It goes to show how time flies. Like the Acting Chairman, Deputy Breathnach, my career in education dates back a long time; to the 1960s in my case. There is no comparison between the situations then and now.

Deputy Malcolm Byrne referred to technology. The first computer I saw in a school was an Apple II. It had a green screen and one cursor and made beeping noises. We have come a long way and technology is moving very quickly. One sometimes wonders what impact it is having on our children, particularly when one hears principals talking about special lockers for mobile phones such that they are not used in classrooms, their not being permitted in school, the apps available on them and the significant amounts of time which students spend on them. Technology is welcome but we must be mindful of its dangers.

Deputies Buckley and Pádraig O'Sullivan referred to the situation in Carrigtwohill. I too am frustrated by the rate of progress there. It is the biggest single project ever undertaken by the Department of Education and Skills, with a total spend of approximately €38 million to provide on one campus two primary schools and a secondary school. The latter will cater for 1,000 students. The project is ready to go and funding for it has always been available, but it has been beset by problems relating to the purchase of land, obtaining planning permission and so on. It is being driven on as quickly as possible. The delay has led to frustrations.

Deputy Buckley referred to various waiting lists. In many parts of the country, parents enrol their child in more than one school and sometimes as many as three or four different schools. That is a source of frustration for principals because as the year goes on, the lists get shorter, which makes planning very difficult. We may need to come up with a system for admission to secondary schools which operates along the lines of the Central Applications Office college admission process. That is being done in Limerick, where it works quite well. It may be a measure which should be implemented where there are difficulties in respect of school waiting lists. There were very long waiting lists in my area at the start of last year but by August the waiting lists had diminished such that almost every student was catered for. It causes frustration for parents and worry for students if the child is number 90 or 100 on a waiting list. There was reference to a child moving from 90th to 60th on a waiting list. The list keeps moving as the year progresses. Last August, a woman whose child was enrolled in two schools contacted me, wondering to which school she should send the child. She was holding up a place for another child. Parents enrolling their children in more than one school is a problem. They may be worried that their child will not get a place. Major building works have been completed in approximately 15 schools in my area in recent years, including extensions and new schools.

That is happening across the country, thankfully.

I thank all the Deputies for their contributions to the debate. The combination of the committee's work and this debate will help inform policy on these important matters. I spent five years on the justice committee and it produced many reports. The reports feed into policy. Committees have a major role to play in this regard. What has struck me, however, since I left the committee and undertook my current role is that it might be useful sometimes if committees would cost the proposals they put forward, that is, how much the proposals would cost the taxpayer. We can have wish lists, but it is important to go through them to see how many millions or tens of millions of euro they are going to cost. I am not sure if that has been done here. I have not seen it, but perhaps it has been. All of us should take on that responsibility if we are making proposals.

Much progress has been made on the matters outlined today since the public hearings held by the committee in late August 2018. This is evident in the many initiatives the Minister for Education and Skills has taken since his appointment. The symposium on small schools gave an opportunity to restate the Government's commitment to small schools and to open a dialogue with all the key stakeholders. The improvement of capitation funding for schools will apply from the start of the 2020-21 school year. The combined increases in standard capitation funding for primary and post-primary schools given in the budgets for 2019 and 2020 means restoration of approximately 40% will be achieved. There is support for principals through the commitment to revise the number of available posts of responsibility to take account of retirements during the school year in order to maintain the current level of posts of responsibility and to increase the number of principal release days. The increased number of release days is important, especially for schools with a teaching principal. Budget 2020 is the third successive budget to provide for an increase in the number of principal release days.

Under the current Action Plan for Education there is a commitment to increase the financial support for book rental schemes for schools in order to reduce or eliminate school book costs for parents. When I was teaching many moons ago we started a book rental scheme and it was very successful. Schools must also continue to take a pragmatic role and do everything possible to keep costs down for parents. Schools can do many things to keep costs down, such as with regard to the generic jumper with the fancy crest. This stuff is not needed for education or for schools. Under Project Ireland 2040 the Government is investing €8.8 billion in the school education sector between 2018 and 2027. This will enable the Department to make good progress in delivering on the significant number of projects in the pipeline and increase the infrastructure capacity in the school sector, while ensuring that the schools being built are being future proofed and taking advantage of new technologies as they come on stream.

Deputy Malcolm Byrne spoke about PE in schools. I agree wholeheartedly on the importance of physical education. Part of my role at present is developing a youth justice strategy. I believe it is extremely important that young people are involved in sport, and very often they can learn a new sport in schools. It is also important that we do not just close down schools at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. The facilities, sports halls, gymnasia and sports fields should be available to the wider community as much as possible outside school hours. Other clubs and organisations should be able to use those facilities as well. That is happening in many areas, but we must start to maximise the use of our resources and facilities across the country, especially when the taxpayer is funding them.

I thank the Chairman of the committee for the great work she has done in this report. It is important to shine a light in this area. The report is very good and it will certainly inform policy and debate into the future. I thank the Chairman and the members for the time they put into this and for taking it so seriously.

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