James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister on her approach to date and congratulate her on what she has achieved. I single out the admirable and essential decision last week to try to prioritise two cohorts of students, which are those with special needs and leaving certificate students. It was the right call, for the right reasons, and it is regrettable that it did not prove possible. It does worry me that we have a situation where the system was unable to manage 5% of students returning to 100% of the space in a scenario where 100% of students were due to return a few days prior to that.

I am not sure where that fell apart. There has been much speculation and theories but in any event, there is significant concern as to how we get back at all if 5% of students could not go back because the system was not able to deal with that.

Many sectors have continued throughout the pandemic. Retail workers have been going through thick and thin. We have seen gardaí, emergency service workers and healthcare personnel, including doctors and nurses, on the front line. Others, including public transport workers, have also continued, with teachers and school workers continuing up until December. This was for the same reasons, as the provision of school and education, particularly to leaving certificate and final year students, is an essential service. This is similar to how we have other cohorts of essential services. I really hope a way can be found to provide this because it is so important to all the students' needs.

There are many thousands of teachers across the country who made Trojan efforts both before Christmas in physical classrooms and now in remote classrooms. I saw them working as recently as this morning in my household, where teaching continues remotely. We all know this is no substitute for real-time and physical engagement. Many matters have been raised in the Chamber today and on other days in the media and pretty much all of those can be addressed by returning to schools as soon as it can be done safely. I urge that this be done as soon as safely possible. This would address myriad issues and although I will not repeat all of them, I will briefly touch on a few.

The social and economic issues are well known and that divide is only exacerbated with physical distance from school and not having social, economic and parental supports in place. I listened to Ms Tanya Ward of the Children's Rights Alliance speak last week on a radio programme, saying it would be tragic if schools could not return as soon as possible for those reasons.

The digital divide is real and broadband connections vary from person to person and house to house. That does not just scupper students as it affects teachers. I have heard stories of teachers having to drive and teach from their cars in places where they could get better connections. They were not able to teach classes from home due to problems with Internet access.

I do not come to this from an abstract position on policy. I am married to a teacher, the son of a teacher and a parent to a leaving certificate student. I see it from all sides and every single day. In my kitchen at home there is a calendar on the wall with a number of dates on it, including the return to school after Christmas, mock and oral exams, as well as for the leaving certificate. These are on the calendar and the household has run to that schedule since September. There are some people in this Chamber and elsewhere who say we should tear up the calendar and start again. Actually, I am not quite sure what they advocate as an alternative. I do not share those views.

There are real and meaningful concerns about the mental health of students in many cases but the answer to this - the expected panacea - is not to cancel everything and abandon ship. The answer is to acknowledge that many students have mental health issues exacerbated by such suggestions; for every student calling for this to be cancelled, others are calling for the process to continue. We must all be mindful in the debate that there are many views on this, both from the student population, parents, families and educators. Whatever answer is found, it must reflect those views.

My own view is that we should provide a structure. Perhaps mocks or oral exams could be conducted online to some extent. We need to give these students motivation and a path forward to follow. As the Minister indicates, the traditional leaving certificate examination provides a way to do that. I have no issue with predicted grades being used as a parallel process but I suggest that neither process should be a poor relation. They should work in tandem rather than one being an afterthought.

I yield to my colleagues as I know a number of them wish to contribute.

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