Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As a teacher, the Deputy has experience of educating children. As a country, we need to look at novel, innovative approaches for how we will educate Ukrainian nationals.

Teachers who come from Ukraine will be able to teach in their mother tongue, which will be of assistance to these children. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment will publish resources to support learners with English as an additional language. It may well be that some sort of compromise will be found between folding children into the existing educational system as well as providing a hybrid and novel approach. As the Deputy suggested, perhaps having the Oireachtas committee look at it is a good idea.

We should dedicate some time to this because we do not want a situation where our schools, and we have 4,000 in this country, are under acute pressure when they are just coming out of Covid. It will be a mammoth task for them to take in children, especially if we are talking about approximately 100,000 Ukrainian nationals coming here, but we have to do it. It is imperative we do not just take families as refugees into this country. We waived the visa requirement. There is no arbitrary limit to the number that can come into this country, but we also have to educate their children. They could be here for six months, a year or five years. We do not want them suffering from a lack of education. Since Ireland's schools have a strong tradition of welcoming children from different nationalities and backgrounds, we will have the capacity to do it. The helpline will assist and cohesion between Departments will be crucial to ensure we all speak the same language when we deal with this issue.

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