Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The glorious thing about coming in at the end is that all the good points have been made and I can steal one or two of them. I commend Deputy Ó Ríordáin. This is simple legislation. It has been said by almost all speakers that we are talking about equality. This is a small move. It is a step in the right direction and we could easily do it.

It was said by some of my colleagues earlier that we could simply let this go from Second Stage to Committee Stage and then deal with any issues. At that stage all stakeholders would have an opportunity to come in. It is difficult to see this as anything other than a scenario where those who are already ahead ensure they stay ahead. The reality is that there are schools who use this 25% rule as a means of ensuring that the right people go to the school. That means the wrong people do not but they may already be in a situation where they have had to deal with fewer opportunities.

My father was a principal in Dundalk at St. Joseph's National School in Muirhevna Mór for many years. From time to time, he would refer to the issue of teachers who would try to do their best. They would be all into ensuring that they were getting the best results from the children and all the rest of it.

However, he said that very quickly they needed to realise that sometimes there were kids in class who did not necessarily have all the supports and opportunities they should and that there was absolutely no point in having a row with a kid about not having homework done or not having a pencil when the kid might not have had breakfast for a couple of days. This Bill will not deal with those sorts of problems but it is a step in the right direction.

We have had other difficulties as Teachtaí Dála in our constituencies. We have often had parents come to us about not being able to get their kids into particular schools. They fall on the wrong side of a line on a map that was decided arbitrarily and sometimes does not make a lot of sense. I ask the Minister to examine the rules and protocols in respect of all that with a view to allowing for something more sensible.

I do not need to continue in that vein. This is a straightforward ask. Should this not happen? Should we not give people opportunities as opposed to giving an added benefit to those who already have it and do not necessarily need it? Do we make our society slightly fairer? As I said, this Bill will not deal with all the inequalities we have. We need to consider a greater level of early interventions. It is not just that we need more SNAs and need to ensure we have early diagnoses; we need to ensure we provide all these added supports such as breakfast clubs that people may need when we are dealing with cases of sometimes multigenerational trauma. Here we all deal in other parts of our work with the outworkings of this. We work with children who were never given the supports they required and who then, later in life, due to bad choices that are, in turn, down to bad opportunities end up in bad places. We have all dealt with these sorts of circumstances. The drugs problem and other societal problems all stem from this. We, therefore, need to deal with the very simple issues we have here. If it is something like this, straightforward legislation that will introduce a level of equality that will make some people's lives better, we should do that. We then also need to consider major interventions that are required to give those supports to those children, communities and parents with a view not just to equality of opportunity but to equality of outcome.

It is in the Minister's hands to deal with this one simple request, and there is absolute agreement in this Chamber that it would be very simple. It would also be a message about how we in this House can work together and about bringing about the best results for the people we represent. Once again, I ask the Minister to put aside the general politics and to consider offering something that will make this world a little better. I commend Deputy Ó Ríordáin on what is a very straightforward request that may just make things a little better.

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