Dáil debates

Wednesday, 14 October 2020

Financial Resolutions 2020 - Financial Resolution No. 7: General (Resumed)

 

7:30 pm

Photo of Donnchadh Ó LaoghaireDonnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will primarily speak about the education elements of this budget. The pandemic demonstrates that Irish schools are underfunded, understaffed and overcrowded. This has slowed the reopening of schools and it means that keeping schools open safely and sustainably is extremely challenging. It is a challenge that teachers, school staff and principals face every day. We have much more to do on that front.

Budget 2021 provided the Government with an opportunity to finally address some of these long-standing matters facing our education sector to ensure education is never again as vulnerable as Covid-19 showed it to be. I fear the Minister and the Department have not done entirely what is required to deliver this. The sector remains vulnerable and underfunded in several areas.

I sent the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Foley, a document recently outlining what I felt was necessary to ensure schools remained open safely and sustainably. The key priorities are to reduce class sizes significantly, and space is required for that, urgent testing and rapid tracing for students and staff. There are certainly still issues in this, particularly with tracing. We must ensure no child is left behind and no parent has to worry about their job or income because a child must be kept home. We must address the shortage of teachers in certain areas and increase capacity in school transport.

There are areas where welcome progress has been made. I welcome the significant increase in special education teaching posts. We spoke about this earlier and there will be concerns about these allocations. I hope there will be some consultation but I acknowledge that this is a welcome boost.

A commitment has been made to reduce pupil-teacher ratios, which is welcome, but a reduction of one point is not the shift we hoped for. A shift of at least two points would have been required to radically change the experience and facilitate social distancing. There are educational issues, to which I will return, but there is also the matter of space in schools, which are overcrowded.

The capital allocation for buildings is basically what was provided in the national development plan. How are we going to support schools struggling with social distancing? We proposed a specific significant fund for the schools struggling most with social distancing but there is nothing of that nature in the budget.

On the pupil-teacher ratio, I am astonished and angry that, among the hundreds of thousands of children who attend primary school, those who need a reduction most will not benefit from a reduction. Shamefully, the majority of some of the most disadvantaged schools in the country, DEIS band 1 schools, will not see a single point reduction in the ratio. That is shameful and wrong. There are 229 DEIS band 1 schools, including the ordinary vertical schools from infants to six class, as well as junior and senior schools. Only the senior schools, which total 60 or 70, will see that reduction and the other 200-odd will not see any benefit. We are talking about some children with some of the worst or challenging starts to life and they face the greatest disadvantage. For them, education can make the greatest difference but for some bizarre reason - perhaps it is an oversight but I do not know - they have been excluded. This decision must be reversed.

The Minister, Deputy Foley, is interested in educational disadvantage and the Minister of State who is here has displayed an interest in tackling issues around special educational needs. I appeal to the Government to fix this. There is no excuse and it would be a very small cost in the grand scheme. I welcome that hundreds of thousands of children will rightfully benefit form a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio but there are a few thousand in those most disadvantaged schemes, which is wrong. It must be fixed.

The Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, should bring the message to the Department that this should be fixed in the coming days. It can be done and money has been found for all sorts of things in this budget. Most of them are good, although I would like to see some go further, and others I do not agree with, but we can surely find the money to ensure all DEIS band 1 schools benefit from the reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio. It must be done.

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