Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I cannot but acknowledge the fact that, in an allocated two-hour debate on education, there is no representative from the Department of Education here. The Minister left after 30 minutes. I intended the tenor of my contribution to be constructive but the fact there is nobody here will alter that slightly. Given the fact there is an absent chair where a Minister should be, I cannot help but feel this is symbolic of a Department that is not in control of what is happening on the ground and has been absent for much of the time, while the crisis has got worse in our schools.

I wanted to come in here and be constructive but I cannot help but also channel the anger of the teaching community, including principals, teachers, SNAs, and parents who have contacted me and others around the Chamber daily, in the Opposition and the Government alike, expressing fear and frustration. That needs to be brought to the fore tonight and it is lamentable that the Minister has left after 30 minutes.

Had the Minister been here I would have acknowledged two realities that existed in our school community over the past four months since they reopened in September. First, the Department of Education, the Minister and various different representatives of the Government have repeated ad nauseamthat schools are safe. At the same time, in the past two weeks the highest recorded number of Covid cases has been among those five to 12-year-olds who sit in those cold classrooms every day and then they are among their parents and grandparents. We were told by the Minister there was no crisis in getting substitute teachers while at the same time school principals were going on Twitter to call for substitute teachers to go to their schools. Second, not too long ago the Minister told us she was on the side of children with special educational needs and then she sought to remove banked hours for special education teachers. Those two realities existed in our schools.

I have not had the opportunity to talk to the Minister, but every week during her Questions on Promised Legislation slot I have raised the issue of mitigation in schools. It has been a slow and arduous process even to bring it to where we are now. There has been a fund and I acknowledge there has been an increase in fund for essential small budget work, but it is still not in place for HEPA filters. We have a scenario in our schools where the essential grant scheme has been doubled to €45 million but where there will still be schools that will have to choose between refurbishing a bathroom, fixing a window or providing a HEPA filter. Then we have a ludicrous scenario whereby the responsibility for what HEPA filter goes into a school is left with a school principal. School principals are already cut to the bone in the work they have been asked to do. If you read the Minister’s comments today, you will see that they have been left in charge of antigen testing, sourcing substitute teachers, and dealing with incredibly low morale in schools and with the panic of parents and guardians alike. Now we get a budget for essential air filtration devices and it is left to school principals to source them, go online and become an expert on where these air filtration devices can be purchased. The Taoiseach said last week they would cost between €1,400 and €1,700. Others are saying they are buying them for €120. We have a seller’s market now. Schools will open up in January and most of them will still not have been able to source HEPA filters by then. That is a shambles and once again it will be a failure.

We are moving into our third term of sixth-year students who do not know what examination they will be sitting come May and June. That is a failure of contingency planning and a failure to learn lessons and apply a sense of compassion and decency to these students. They have already suffered so much with the interference in their learning environment and taking days off to isolate or for whatever reason. I met some of those leaving certificate students during the week on a Zoom call and they told us they did not get to a sit a junior certificate. They have never had a State examination and yet we still have this scenario where they do not believe they will be sitting a traditional leaving certificate. However, we have not yet intervened to say what our contingency plan is and that they can be safe in the knowledge they will be going back to the hybrid model.

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