Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy and take his points regarding his concerns about the new model of calculated grades.

The Deputy raised the specific issue of school teacher allocation. We got the relevant information in the office today and I have asked for an inspector to make contact with the school. As the Deputy correctly pointed out, though, it is an independent process. One of the rigid features of the teacher allocation model is that it is based on numbers. There has to be a threshold. The Deputy's wider proposal of departing from that system and retaining everyone who is in place currently raises financial considerations.

A number of Deputies including Deputy Ó Ríordáin have raised the issue of SUSI and the difficulties that families will have. These are indicative of the broader, wider and deeper questions that we as legislators in this House will be asked in the time to come. Everything will be different and parents are under pressure. The summer jobs that students used to have access to will not all be there. That is a major difficulty.

Deputy Ó Ríordáin referenced July provision. We are not able to implement it in the traditional way that parents are used to, but we are focused on trying to widen it if possible in a way that they are satisfied with and that stays within public health guidance.

Regarding schools returning, people are seeing what is happening in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. Speaking as a parent, never mind as the Minister for Education and Skills, no one wants schools back more quickly than me. People want it to happen and their children to be in class, but at the heart of everything we do must be the question of whether it is safe. Advice changes as we move along, but the NPHET advice that we have currently is that schools should return in September. We want to put a proposal to NPHET in respect of special education and disadvantage, though. If possible, we would like to see some schools opening to provide the relevant school programmes. We are accepting and working towards the current advice that schools should not return until September, but the Taoiseach is anxious to have a full school programme for these students because he knows from the advice he is getting that there is a regression.

Deputy Ó Ríordáin also referenced the Teaching Council.

See this speech in context