Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I too wish the Ministers and Ministers of State well. As they know, education is so important in these times. Given the concerns that we have, it is so important to have such good people in education. I wish them well. I want a lot of work done for Carlow, just so as we start on the record first.

There is much concern about the return to school in September. There are parents out there afraid to buy schoolbooks and uniforms because they are not convinced their children can return to school.

Every year, the summer works scheme provides funding to individual school authorities to undertake small-scale building works which ideally can be carried out during the summer months or at other times that avoid disrupting the operation of the school. This was an ideal time to have carried out these works with schools off and construction resumed before anyone was on-site. A number of schools in County Carlow have not heard back about the grants they have applied for. Instead, there was a very small number of grants given under the emergency school grant scheme.

As we have heard, it is the Minister's firm intention that children are to return to school. In cases of schools which were overcrowded already, school authorities are looking around to see where they can make space to bring children back and comply with social distancing. Why were these schools not given funding to increase their accommodation? I was so upset over the summer. I had been working with people in a school who are getting a new school building. They had been given a commitment that they would get a prefab for a year or so until the school was ready to start the build. They got word a few weeks back that they could not get that prefab because there was no money for it. I do not know whether there are prefabs available. Maybe the Minister can come back to me on that. However, I now have a school principal in Carlow who does not know where she will put all her young students because she has been told by the Department that there is no prefab there for her. If there is no funding for these projects and if there is not enough money to give sufficient funding to repair a roof, for example, how can schools expect that there will be funding to return to school?

We need clarification on this. I welcome what the Minister stated earlier on. Are parents to be asked to supply funding for PPE, cleaning and extra staffing? Parents have suffered enough, having had to educate their children for the best part of this year.

Where will the children who could not fit already in these small rural schools go in September? Is the Minister looking at halls and football clubhouses? We need the roadmap. We need clarification. I listened to the Minister's brief. Can we have a copy of the Minister's statement? That would be important. We did not get a copy of it today. Even for us, for clarification, it would be important to get a copy of what the Minister said today.

Other Deputies have spoken about school transport. This scheme was not fit for purpose previously. With restrictions on public transport now, what are we doing for schoolchildren? Is there a roadmap for that? It is only six or seven weeks until school returns. Can we get information because that is so important?

The other area I have been working on for the past few years is DEIS schools. The Minister said that a fund to provide free schoolbooks is now available to more than 100 DEIS schools and I welcome that. However, I have been working for years for two schools in Tullow that have requested DEIS status. The system of DEIS and how one applies needs to be looked at. These are schools that should be in DEIS. They fit all the criteria, but we are told they are not getting DEIS status. I will give the Minister the names of the schools. I will talk to her about it because I have other schools that I firmly believe should get DEIS status.

The other area I want to talk about and that the Minister spoke about is apprenticeships. I would welcome if we could get the numbers on that.

I welcome the investment in SNAs the Minister spoke about. This is the highest number ever - 17,000. We will do so much. I believe we need to do so because this is a different time for schools and for teaching. My daughter is a teacher. She sees the challenges she is facing in the school she is in.

What I will say to the Minister, Deputy Harris, is that I, as a Carlow woman, would be always promoting the technological university for the south east. The south-east Deputies have had a good few meetings. We have met the president of Institute of Technology Carlow, Dr. Patricia Mulcahy, and the president of Waterford Institute of Technology, Professor Willie Donnelly. We are fully supporting it. I believe the Minister met the presidents last week. Technological university status is so important for the south east, and particularly for Carlow, my home town. I know we can deliver so much there. It is a great school, like all the others. They are all doing their best. What I want to know from the Minister is whether there is funding. Can he guarantee that? What is the timeframe? In the Seanad, in 2018, we passed the legislation providing for technological university status. In particular, I need to ask the Minister today whether he can confirm the timeframe for the south-east technological university.

That is the bulk of my questions. The Ministers, Deputies Foley and Harris, might come back with some answers. I wish them well. I believe they have many challenges going forward. I would ask that we get clarification and information to the parents because there are concerns out there. We all heard on the news the other night that we could have another surge. Hopefully, we will not. Parents are concerned for their children. It is important that we give as much information as possible to the schools but also to the parents who are trying to know what is best to do.

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