Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Foley. It is fair to say that the sense of partnership between the Department and individual school communities is non-existent. The feeling is that schools are being abandoned, that teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs, are being abandoned and that individual school principals are being abandoned, and what they have had as a source of comfort for more than 18 months has been the mantra from Government that schools are safe. When HEPA filters have been raised for the past 18 months, they have been told schools are safe. When antigen testing was being put forward as a tool to battle Covid within schools, they were told schools are safe. Indeed, when the issue of substitution was raised with the Minister, she seemed to be in some way surprised that substitution was even being raised when everybody else in politics knew that schools were screaming out about the issue.

What I want to do for the Minister is to provide her with three solutions for the new year. I find the lack of political partnership within these Houses a little discouraging as well. I wrote to her on this very day last month, 16 November, and I asked her to meet with all spokespeople on education from all Opposition parties so that collectively we could convey to her what we were hearing from school communities and she could then act on it in a spirit of partnership. That meeting has not taken place. There is no sense that that meeting will ever take place. In fact, the only reason she is here today is because members of the Opposition demanded it. That lack of communication from her even to members of the Opposition is mirrored by the poor communication from the Department to individual school communities who feel that they are not being listened to. The only reason schools are open and in any way functioning is the dedication, the patriotism and sense of genuine public service of our teachers, SNAs and principals, all those volunteers who go with every school community, and school caretakers and the secretaries. I remind everybody, perhaps in future political debates or debates in public discourse, that whenever they feel the need to criticise teachers or SNAs, they should remember this pandemic and that it was not the political leadership of the Government or the Department of Education's attitude that kept schools open but it was teachers, SNAs, school principals, secretaries, caretakers and everybody in those school communities.

I have three suggestions. First, there needs to be an early decision on the leaving certificate. It is not tenable for us to say that the leaving certificate can go back to the way it was in 2017, 2018 and 2019 when it comes to 2022. The level of disruption that fifth year and sixth year students in this senior cycle have endured has been unfair. They missed out on some in-school teaching last year. They are now in a situation where, effectively, there is a substitution crisis at second level and much of what they would have been expecting to learn is just not being taught. An acknowledgement of that early from the Department would be welcome along with a process rolled out this year as happened last year. Let us just do it. Let us acknowledge that they have lost out and that they can have a hybrid model of in-school written examination allied with the assessed grade model similar to that rolled out last year because, in fairness, any second level principal will tell the Minister that students are not learning as they should be and whatever adjustments the Department is saying to the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science will be rolled out will not go far enough.

Second, we cannot treat every school the same when it comes to this pandemic. Areas in my constituency have the highest infection rate in the country. Why not have a crack team of education and public health officials proactively engaging with these schools where a raft of students and half the staff are out to ascertain what resources they need, be it HEPA filters and so on? Why do we have such a generalised view of what every school community is doing? It is not difficult to get the data. Here is a high infection area. Here is an area where it is clearly a problem. Here is an area where the school is obvious struggling. Let us proactively engage with that school. What happens? For example, in a school in my constituency with the highest infection rate in the country a number of weeks ago, 58% of the students were out and people could not get anybody on the phone for a week. That is a practical suggestion for the Minister. Let us get rid of the trench warfare between different Departments, let us work together and identify areas where the infection rate is high, and let us proactively engage with those schools. However, that would, of course, take the Department of Education to actually believe that it has a role in the day-to-day management of schools. The attitude the Minister has inherited is that you are on your own.

Third, as a practical suggestion, I note that the roll-out of vaccination for five- to 12-year-olds will take place in vaccination centres in the new year and I welcome that. It will be a game changer for education. Why are we not doing it in schools? Why do we not roll out the vaccination for five- to 12-year-olds, not in vaccination centres but in schools? While we are at it, why do we not vaccinate the school staff in the process?

It just makes so much sense. We are asking parents to go to a vaccination centre to get their children vaccinated. Why not be proactive and go to the school community, vaccinate the children on site and vaccinate the staff - teachers, SNAs, secretaries and caretakers - at the same time? It makes perfect sense. It has been done before.

I will leave the Minister with three points. Let us change the leaving certificate and do what we did last year. Let us have proactive engagement with areas of high infection rates in a way that will make a difference, and let us vaccinate young people where they are learning to ensure schools can remain open.

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