Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies Martin Kenny and Patricia Ryan who have five minutes each. On the whole, Sinn Féin supports the Bill. It is right to create uniformity in this area and set out in clear terms the relationship between schools, parents and students. Providing a framework in the form of a charter for parents and students will surely have a positive impact on engagement between all parties, including teachers, staff, parents and students. I welcome the amendment mentioned by the Minister, which is to insert the word "community" into the Bill, because I have found the very best schools are the ones that look outward to their communities and get involved in community activities and initiatives. That says an awful lot about a school and the ethos within it in terms of openness. Many schools are excellent at that and really benefit from it, as do students, in a very profound way, whether it is through community initiatives on bullying or other key issues within the community.

However, there are still areas that need to be improved. We will work collaboratively to strengthen the Bill. I thank and commend members of the voluntary boards of management who give up their time to do magnificent, and often thankless, work. They are often expected to deal with ever-increasing complex issues relating to the provision of education in their communities with very little thanks. School principals are overstretched and under-resourced to cope with all the bureaucracy and instructions delivered from the Department. The proper resources need to come with this charter, whether these are for principals or boards of management. To make this charter really effective we need to underpin it with resources. We are not talking about an awful lot, but we need to have resources for collaboration, communication and the extra workload involved in devising the charters, especially for teaching principals so they are not overburdened any more than they are already.

It is proposed in the Bill that the review of ministerial guidelines shall be at the discretion of the Minister, but experience tells us that this is a case of "whenever suits" as opposed to when there is evidence of systematic flaws. We cannot allow lethargy to weigh down this fundamental relationship between schools and parents and Sinn Féin seeks to amend this aspect of the Bill. Sinn Féin considers reviews of the charter should be conducted with predictable regularity at intervals of three to five years. The Bill sets out information on how grievances parents and students have with schools are handled. The Bill, as it stands, allows schools to dismiss complaints where they believe them to be frivolous or vexatious. While it is likely that schools will sometimes receive complaints that may not hold water, this provision, as it stands, is unnecessarily broad and may result in legitimate complaints being thrown out without any reasons given. Sinn Féin submitted amendments in the Seanad that would compel schools to give reasons, in writing, why a complaint was dismissed. That is very important.

The Bill makes some progress in placing a statutory obligation on schools to consult students and parents on school costs. I have found that in most of the cases where there has been a breakdown in relationships between families, parents and schools, it is because of a lack of resources, particularly in the area of resources for special needs. For instance, I know of a 15-year-old lad who has been sent on a 100-mile round trip to access education. His local school is very willing to provide that education, but it needs the resources to be able to do it. It needs resources for safety reasons and in order for him, as the Minister rightly said, to be able to fulfil his potential. That is really an area that needs to be looked at. Many of the communication problems could be alleviated by putting in the resources and listening to boards of management and schools so they are not left on their own.

Many costs for families are above and beyond the scope of the schools themselves. School transport is one of them, even if families win the fight for a seat on the bus to begin with. If they do not have a medical card, families then have to pay €100 per primary school child and €350 for second level students. Even at this stage of the year, many parents are anxious about how they will find €350, or €600 if they have more than one child. They ask what they will be able to cut back in the summer in order to be able to meet that cost. Just because a household does not have a medical card does not mean it is financially sound. The thresholds, which have not been raised for years, are ridiculously low, as the Minister knows. The cost of examinations, papers, books and information technology, IT, equipment all increase pressure on families.

It is disappointing that the Bill does not specifically mention school uniforms or put an onus on the school to make generic non-branded uniforms available. Barnardos has reported that 65% of parents of primary school pupils and 74% of parents with children in secondary school are requested to pay a voluntary contribution. These contributions can range from €50 to €300 a year. That is an awful lot of money to ask from hard-pressed parents. One of the most notable aspects of the Bill is that it proposes the charter contains information for parents on voluntary contributions. Again, in the Seanad, Sinn Féin submitted an amendment in the hope of standardising the regulation and collation of data on voluntary contributions so parents would know how much schools collected and what the money was being spent on. Some schools are very good at that transparency and communicating with parents on it. The amendment passed Committee Stage with the support of all parties, bar Fine Gael. However, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil coalesced on Report Stage to vote this amendment down. I ask the Minister to reconsider that now that the Bill is in this House. We intend to submit amendments on this issue again in the Dáil.

Sinn Féin's long-term view is that voluntary contributions should be abolished and capitation funding must be increased. It is not right that these costs should fall on parents on top of all the other back-to-school costs they face. Children are constitutionally guaranteed free education, but these contributions are voluntary in name only with parents feeling obliged to pay them. For some parents, that is just not possible. The shame and embarrassment that is caused, in some cases, where parents just cannot afford the contributions that are being requested is extremely unjust. Many families, especially single-parent households, are forced into debt as a result of so-called voluntary contributions and that adds many financial pressures.

The average cost of secondary school is €1,891 per child per annum. This has been increasing year on year. Over the six-year course of a second level education, the so-called voluntary contribution constitutes a regressive tax which costs parents on average €700 per annum. This is a failing on the part of the State. We should act to give workers and families a break in this regard. Sinn Féin will table an amendment in this regard in the hope of standardising the regulation and collation of data on the voluntary contribution. We should be working our way towards no voluntary contributions because the State will be properly financing our schools. In other jurisdictions in the European Union and across Europe, such voluntary contributions are banned. We need to look at why they are banned.

It is time we poverty-proofed our education system from preschool to third and fourth level. Forcing families into financial stress to access basic primary and second level education is not acceptable in a society that calls itself a republic, one that has a Constitution that underpins the right to free education. It should never be the case we cherish all of the children equally provided they can pay.

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