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

We, like a lot of people have said, would welcome anything that improves engagement between schools and parents and students. I am fairly sure my parents would have liked a lot less interaction with the school and I possibly have that sense with my own young fella. That is generally related to us rather than the school being the difficulty.

I recognise there may be a need for this to be widened out to include other stakeholders such as staff. It would be remiss of me not to deal with our amendments on the voluntary contribution. It is a misnomer and it can be a huge cost on families already under severe pressure. It is about the terminology we use. We are a long way removed from the period of free education.

A wider audit of schools is required. I have spoken here many times about how we all come to education from a different place and have different family support structures and how we need a holistic intervention system from birth. That is before we get into the issues relating to special education, teaching allocations and all that.

All of these issues need to be examined. As Deputies, we all deal with issues relating to children in our constituencies who fall outside particular areas and cannot necessarily access primary and secondary schools and other issues that impact on their ability to choose a school. There are specific issues relating to school transport. We sometimes find an Irish solution whereby we can get around a corner but we need a holistic audit of the issues. I recognise that we cannot always deliver for every person but we need a system that at least takes into account their needs and works on that basis.

We should use this opportunity to deal with some of the issues that have dogged us all for a long time. We need a complete overhaul and audit of the supports and interventions available. Some of them may need to be delivered as part of a community-type approach that involves all the agencies, State and otherwise, and that has the school entirely centred within it.

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