Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I pay tribute to the many principals, teachers and caretakers who have worked tirelessly over the month of August and recent days in particular to get the doors of schools reopened and children back in classrooms so that the learning can begin. My eldest son, Sam, started junior infants at Parteen national school on Monday morning. I was delighted the Dáil was not sitting and I could bring him to school. To see the smiling faces back in the schoolyard of the school in which I taught up to a few months ago was a lovely sight. It felt like normality was returning to the country. We all want to see that happen in the best way over the coming months.

I pay tribute to the Minister, Deputy Foley, and her Department for the work they have done. It has not been an easy start for the Minister. A baptism of fire is definitely a cliché overused in politics, but that is exactly what the Minister has experienced. Along with her officials, she has put forward the best possible roadmap to deal with what is happening and will happen in the months ahead.

I want to speak briefly about a school in my locality, Meelick national school, which has been mentioned over the past 24 hours in the media as a school that has closed on a precautionary basis due to the Covid pandemic. There should be no stigmatising of any school. I take this opportunity to speak on behalf of the local community in saying that we fully believe that it has done what is right. I am a former pupil and teacher of this school. The school is following public health guidance. It is unfortunate that it is the first school in the country to close due to Covid, but there will be many more to follow. On a rolling basis, we will see classes closing and, probably, schools closing as the next academic year or two gets under way. Meelick school is doing what it should be doing and I look forward to it reopening next Wednesday and getting back to what it does best.

There are two competing policies that I would ask the Minister to review. First, there is a requirement on schools, insofar as they can, to adhere to social distancing guidelines, but there is also a requirement on those schools to have in place a plethora of supports for special educational needs. A number of schools in my constituency have applied for additional teachers based on current or projected enrolments. They anticipated that the criteria typically used for the sanctioning of new teaching posts would be loosened from the Department's point of view but those posts have not been sanctioned.

Faced with not having an additional teacher, they have faced a trade-off decision between having 33 or 34 in a class or bringing a teacher out of special education and making him or her an additional mainstream teacher. They are moving staff around. They have done that. I believe it is the right thing and it ensures that classes are smaller and the social distancing principles are adhered to. Unfortunately, it does not fully fit with the congruency of rules in the Department. A little bit of clarity there would be appreciated.

Yesterday I met with the Minister on the fringe of the Dáil sitting to speak about bus transportation in my constituency. It is certainly a major problem. I know there is a review under way but I ask that the Minister also deal with the issue of concessionary passes. I believe this year Bus Éireann chose 4 August as a cut-off date for any parent who had not paid up the bus fare, to drop them off the system. That rule has been there for a long time but was not implemented by Bus Éireann. It was not the best of years for it to be implementing it. There should have been much more flexibility this year given where education is at and given the difficulties families are facing.

The final thing I want to mention is distance learning. Many schools have advanced plans but some do not. I hope the Department can bring us up to speed on this in due course. An audit is needed of what facilities schools have to deliver distance learning. Some have local constraints such as lack of broadband while others have fantastic, cutting-edge equipment. I want to wish all the boys and girls, whether their school will be open for the full year or closing intermittently, the best of health and the same to the teachers as the new school year gets under way. It is about learning but it is also about staying safe.

See this speech in context