Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have a lot of questions but I accept that the Minister will not be able to answer all of them now. I ask that she reply in writing to those questions she does not cover. My office has been inundated with calls, messages and emails from leaving certificate 2021 students, as I am sure is true of every Deputy. The main message from the students is that the Department should put a predicted grades system in place and any students who are unhappy with that should be give the option of sitting the leaving certificate exam. Does the Minister and her Department have any plans to do so? If so, I urge her to share those plans with students because they need clarity. Junior certificate students have also been in contact with me. They know that they are down the line vis-à-vistheir leaving certificate peers but their worries are no less important. They need to know if the junior certificate exam will go ahead this year. They feel that they have not had the opportunities to study that previous junior certificate students had, having missed a lot of school last year and now studying remotely again. Does the Department have any plans in place for the junior certificate? What are the plans, if any, for the classroom-based assessments, CBAs, and the oral exams?

I come from Cork South-West which has a genuinely shocking broadband service, from Adrigole to Drimoleague, Kilmacsimon to Kinsale and elsewhere. Leaving certificate students in these areas cannot access school remotely. One family cannot even get mobile phone coverage in their house so the students cannot even use their own data allowance. Can a plan be put in place to enable such disadvantaged students to go into school to access the school's Wi-Fi network in order to learn? I had a mother on the phone yesterday who told me that she had to pick and choose which of her five children could use the Wi-Fi in the house because it is too slow for all of them to use at once. This is the case for so many families. It is all very well to say that children can learn remotely but in practice, those in rural Ireland are far more disadvantaged.

I have a question about books. Surely bookshops should be deemed essential. I submitted a parliamentary question to the Department of Education on this issue but the answer I received this morning was the usual generic response regarding level 5 restrictions. Surely a click and collect facility could be made available so that exam students could buy extra books and exam papers. I ask that the Department looks into this.

Children's mental health is suffering and I fear the effects of this will only be known in years to come. I ask the Minister to explain the situation with regard to the roll-out of the vaccine to SNAs, teachers and other school staff. Is any deadline set in that regard?

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