Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

In the first instance, I extend an apology to the Minister from Deputy Carthy, my co-sponsor of the Bill. He is at Dublin Airport to provide a lift for a family coming back from Ukraine. That is a fairly legitimate excuse. He asked me to give his apologies. I asked him if he wanted me to make any particular points, for example, on County Monaghan. He specifically asked me to say, "This is the year." The Minister can make of that what she will.

The legislation before the Minister is reasonable and thought-out and offers us a staged removal of voluntary contributions. To put the Bill in the current context, we have a cost-of-living crisis across the State. Ordinary families are doing all they can to keep up with sky-high bills and runaway price increases. It is the main issue people are talking about every day, be it fuel, housing, rent or childcare.

Education is another area of cost, be it for books, voluntary contributions, uniforms and everything else. Voluntary contributions are a significant element of the cost of education. They could be €100, €200 or €300. In reality, they are often anything but voluntary.

Ní mhaith le tromlach na scoileanna gur ghá dóibh iarraidh ar thuismitheoirí na deontais seo a chur ar fáil ach cuireann roinnt de na scoileanna brú millteanach ar thuismitheoirí. Tá na litreacha ag teacht de shíor agus bíonn ócáidí, is oth liom a rá, go mbíonn na scoileanna ag rá leis na leanaí agus leis na tuismitheoirí nach mbeidh lockers, dialainne, imeachtaí spóirt agus ealaíona agus an saghas sin rud ar fáil. Níl sé sin maith go leor ar chor ar bith.

People are crucified with the extortionate costs of housing, childcare, energy and fuel, groceries and insurance. They are being hammered by a cost-of-living crisis, where every cost is going up and nothing is coming down. With these increased living costs, families of school-age children will be looking ahead and starting to wonder how they will meet the costs of the return to school this summer. We must begin to plan how to address that now because it is a significant cost. It could be well over €1,000. We know that in this State, there is talk about the concept of free education but it is a myth. In reality, the hidden costs and fees that are associated with sending kids back to each year place a crippling financial burden on parents.

A survey from the Irish League of Credit Unions, ILCU, last summer painted a stark picture of the pressure of back-to-school costs on a family's finances. Two thirds of parents surveyed said they found the costs a significant financial burden, with just under a quarter of families in debt over the return to school, and 21% of families having debts of more than €500. I have heard of parents going to illegal moneylenders, and I am sure the Minister has also heard such stories, and the pressure that puts them under.

Our education system is being heavily subsidised by families. Many parents are forced into debt in order to give their child equal access to an education, through meeting the cost of uniforms, books and transport. Among these costs, one of the most significant is the voluntary contribution. Families can be asked to pay €200, €300 or even €400 per child. The total amount can add up to a significant amount. These contributions add significant pressure on families, as schools mainly seek the payment in September, which on top of all of the other expenses, can tip many families to breaking point. Tagann na costais seo i ndiaidh do go leor teaghlaigh cuid mhaith airgid a chaitheamh ar na cultacha scoile, ar na málaí scoile, ar na leabhair, ar theicneolaíocht agus ar gach rud a théann le dul ar ais ar scoil. Cosnaíonn sé breis is €1,000 ar chuid mhaith teaghlach.

There was no significant measure to increase capitation for primary and secondary schools in the previous budget. There was a marginal increase for a very small category of schools, and welcome and all as that was, the vast majority of schools saw no increase in capitation. The Minister may point to additional Covid funding in the past two years as an increase in capitation overall, but this was ultimately to meet essential costs for personal protective equipment, PPE, additional space, and high-efficiency particulate absorbing, HEPA, filtration. That was welcome but it does not address the fact that the Department does not provide enough money to run schools. We have an almost Victorian situation whereby schools must turn to parents and ask them to fundraise and ask them for voluntary contributions, in effect, donations, albeit that they are not entirely voluntary, just to keep the lights and the heating on.

Voluntary contributions, despite the name, are often not voluntary at all. In reality, the vast majority of schools do not want to be in this situation but there are schools that chase up parents who cannot or do not pay. This causes serious anxiety and stress for families to cough up sums that they do not have. Last summer, we asked families to get in contact with us and tell us their stories and experiences with back-to-school costs and voluntary contributions.

Many of the families we heard from felt that they had been disengaged from their children’s schools and were embarrassed about not being able to cover the costs of these contributions. Others said they would avoid going into the school grounds to pick up their children in case they saw a staff member and were asked about their voluntary contribution that had not been paid. That is putting shame and embarrassment on families and children that is completely unjustifiable.

We know that reminders of non-payment are often sent through students and parents fear their child will be stigmatised in front of their classmates or will be denied access to lockers or extracurricular activities. One family who were in contact with us said their child had come home from school very upset because they had been singled out from their classmates and not given a school journal because the parents were not in a position to pay the full contribution. This family had a weekend of stress and panic trying to pull together their funds so that their child would have the diary when they went back in and would not continue to be singled out. It is not just about the diary; the child obviously wanted the diary. It is about being singled out and the shame and embarrassment foisted on this child and the family. It is a shocking situation to put a family in, but we know exactly why this is happening and why schools are chasing up these voluntary contributions.

For many schools, their backs are against the wall because continued underfunding and Government cuts have left them fundraising just to cover basic things such as keeping the heating and the lights on. Since 2008, the capitation grant has been slashed by successive Governments meaning schools believe they have no choice but to place the burden onto parents to make up the shortfall through these voluntary contributions. As already stated, we could point to the Covid funding but it does not make up the shortfall that has been there for a long time. The additional Covid funding covered only the baseline of what was needed to address additional Covid-related costs. It was not a magic wand to reverse the large-scale funding issues schools have been facing for nearly 15 years, nor is it a sticking plaster for repeated cuts to capitation, as the Minister has tried to suggest, and it will not bring an end to extortionate voluntary contributions. Parents are still having to fundraise to keep the lights on in their children’s schools. A Barnardos survey last year reported that 61% of parents of primary school children and 57% of parents of secondary school children are paying classroom resource fees for photocopying, stationery and art supplies. This again comes down to the underfunding of our school system, which is not funded well enough to run. That is just a simple fact.

It should not have to be this way. This Bill would bring an end to the pressure on families to bear the financial brunt of the underfunding of successive Governments. It will place an obligation on schools to make clear to families that these contributions are in fact voluntary. It will ensure that no child is stigmatised or denied access to lockers or extracurricular activities because their parents are not in a position to make a contribution. It would make it unlawful, which it should be, for schools to treat children any differently because of the situation their parents are in. If anything, the Minister's proposal to delay this by nine months surely means, on that basis alone, we should proceed with this straight away. It should be the case, right now, that no child should be treated differently because a parent or family cannot afford contributions. This Bill would prohibit schools from contacting parents more than once per school year looking for contributions and will bring an end to the stigma and shame by preventing reminders of these contributions being sent home with their children.

Dhéanfadh sé cinnte de go mbeadh soiléireacht ann. Chuirfeadh sé dualgas ar scoileanna agus ar an Roinn an méid atá bailithe sna deontais agus cé mhéad a chaitear i ngach scoil gach bliain a fhoilsiú. D'fhéadfaí sin a dhéanamh gan aimniú a dhéanamh ionas nach mbeadh aon duine ná leanbh tar éis a bheith ainmnithe agus ní bhféadfaí a dhéanamh amach cé hiad. Tá seo fíorthábhachtach agus cuireann sé bóthar romhainn conas gur féidir deireadh a chur leis na deontais seo.

The Bill would ensure transparency by placing an obligation on schools and the Department to publish online the total amount collected in contributions each year, and how this has been spent in each school, in a completely anonymous way so that no one family or child can be identified. Crucially, the Bill sets out a pathway for bringing an end to voluntary contributions for good once capitation levels have been adequately restored by the Government. That is a key point. I do not want to hear from the Minister that voluntary contributions are needed and this Bill is a problem because schools will be left short and will be underfunded. We anticipate that. We know that we need to fill the funding gap first. This Bill is about figuring out what the funding gap is because the Minister does not know. Nobody knows. Some organisations have estimated that it could be in excess of €100 million, but the Minister does not know what the gap is and we need to find that out. This Bill provides for the Minister to request a report from the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General to evaluate how effective Government funding alone is in meeting all reasonable operating costs. It paves the way for abolishing voluntary contributions once and for all, once Government funding is found to be sufficient to meet all of a school’s costs.

Last summer, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul reported experiencing a significant increase in calls from parents who were worried and anxious about meeting back-to-school costs that were up 10% on the year before. In the context of this cost-of-living crisis, I dread to think of the number of calls that charity will be getting this year. It will be far more dramatic than previous years; it is already far in excess of those levels. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Irish League of Credit Unions and Bernardos will all highlight the pressure that families come under. If this Bill and other measures to tackle return-to-school costs are not supported and taken seriously by the Government, then it will be ever more severe.

It is very disappointing to again see the same approach. It is always the case, and just seems to be the mechanism the Government has decided it needs to employ in every instance, that it will delay this by nine months, or it might come back to it, or there might be a report or something like that. Nine months down the line, children will have returned to school. Children will be back in school for the next school year and the Government will put things off until the following year, and probably the year after that again, before we give these parents and families some respite and address the funding imbalance in our schools.

Despite the constitutional protections of the right to education, as well as the notion of Ireland having a free education system, the reality is that many children do not have equal educational opportunities due to a lack of resources. Níl sé fíor go bhfuil oideachas saor in aisce do scoláirí agus do theaghlaigh sa Stát seo ar chor ar bith nuair a fhéachtar ar na costais atá ann i ngach uile slí. This is through no fault of their own or of their parents, many of whom must ignore their personal needs to provide for their children. We need to secure a level playing field for all children and young people by ensuring adequate funding in areas when it is needed most. That necessarily means properly funding our schools so they are not forced to rely on parents to make up this shortfall. My colleagues and I in Sinn Féin will continue to listen to families, to take on board their concerns, and to deliver real change for ordinary people. This Bill would make things fairer for parents, families, children and schools. It is a simple Bill but it is one step towards ensuring that free education is more than just lip service and that equal opportunities can be secured for all children and young people on this island.

I appeal to the Minister yet again. The root factor here is very obvious and very simple; schools do not have enough money to run and they turn to parents. They ask parents who are already hard-pressed and broke from the summer months due to buying uniforms, books and whatever else goes with it, which can cost hundreds of euro. We need to address that too. As parents go into September, they are down €1,000, or €1,500 if they have a few children, and they then get a letter from their school through the door asking them for €250 or €300 because that school does not have enough money to keep the lights or heating on. That is the simple reality. If the Minister is serious about ensuring that we have a proper system of free education, she should support this Bill and do everything she can to ensure this so-called voluntary contributions regime is brought to an end by funding schools properly and then putting a ban in place so they cannot continue to be such a burden on parents. I ask her to reconsider her position and, certainly in nine months' time, to take this Bill more seriously and try to ensure it and the objectives in it can be supported.

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