Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish the new Minister well. We will get the niceties out of the way and then we will get political.

I think we all agree that by comparison with March, the Irish classroom will look very different in September. The last five months have shown us the major fault lines in our public services in health, education etc.. I refer to the statistic that Ireland has one of the highest pupil-teacher ratios in the OECD. In some cases, one in five children is in a class of 30 or more pupils. If that is the case, it will be a gigantic challenges if schools are to look in any way like they were in March. This issue comes down to resources and I have three questions on that issue.

In the area of education, the Government should examine what was done with the Be On Call for Ireland initiative in the health sector. The former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, is here. I refer to a call for people in education systems abroad to come back to Ireland and lend us their expertise, because this will be a call to arms in September to get our classrooms ready and have the education system that we had in March.

I have three questions that I hope the Minister will be able to address. Will the Department look into recruiting final year students in teacher training courses to work in primary and secondary schools in September? I know this was done with student nurses. Is the Department looking for alternative spaces, particularly around schools, in areas where there are going to be major problems concerning space in classrooms? Is the Department looking for extra space on campuses or near campuses? Will the Department call for a freeze on proposed reductions in teacher numbers in certain schools come September? I ask that because some schools will lose teachers because they might have a slightly different number of pupils than they did last September. It does not make sense for schools to lose teachers, so will the Department put a freeze on that happening? I will be very happy if the Minister can answer those three questions.

See this speech in context