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

I find these debates depressing. There is an absolute poverty of ambition or vision in the Minister's speech and from her Department with respect to any real belief in what our education system could be like.

In Finland 50 years ago they had an educational revolution. We have been through two crises in the last ten years. One was an economic collapse and we are at present coming out of a health emergency, yet there has been no real attempt by the Department or the Minister leading it to have a vision of a wholly different education system. What the Finns did, if the Minister were to study it, was put equality at the heart of the education system. Everything that was received and handed down was torn up and they started again. What is absolutely illegal now in Finland is fundraising or fee-paying schools because they said equality should be at the heart of the education system. The problem is that far too many of the conversations happening in school communities, between schools, between parents or between parents and their children are about money. They are about money.

There is a poverty of ambition and vision within the Minister's Department. Earlier we had a conversation about schoolbooks. One only has to look 100 miles up the road. Anybody in the North would consider it bizarre that people would have to put their hands in their pockets to buy schoolbooks for their child so they could go to school. This is the type of mentality we need in this Republic, namely, that it is bizarre that people have to put their hands in their pockets to buy schoolbooks for their child - because the Republic should provide that. However, there is a poverty of ambition and of vision. School parents' association are just fundraising bodies. They just organise fundraisers. They do not talk about education. They do not talk about child development. They do not talk about all the fantastic, wonderful, experiences children should be having in the school environment. They do not talk about any of that stuff. They just talk about money and how to raise it. It is pathetic. It is pathetic that one would have to have a fundraiser for a school.

As for the idea of voluntary contributions, it has been pointed out they are not voluntary. They are voluntary in name. How crushing must it feel for a parent that a notice comes down from the school in their child's fist and know this a barrier between the child and his or her full involvement in school life, because if one cannot come up with the goods, if one cannot come up with the money, one is less likely to fully engage in school life. One is less likely to go to the school gate. One is less likely to go to the parent-teacher meeting, the football match or the school play, lest one comes into contact with a school staff member who feels he or she must ask one because the money is needed to run the school. Money, money, money, money, money - the conversation always comes down to money. It is not just the fact you feel humiliated by that, it is also about the replacement conversation people are not having. People are not talking about, as I mentioned, child development. People are not talking about advances in educational thought. People are not talking about how their child might be struggling in school. People are not talking about potential bullying incidents in school, about subjects or about innovative initiatives in learning. People are not talking about any of that stuff. It is money, money, money, money, money.

Here is a vision for the Minister we could all work on together. The Government threw away €500 million on tax cuts in its last budget and it comes back to those choices. If the Minister took €100 million, which is one fifth of that, she could make every schoolbook in this State free for every child at primary and secondary level and €45 million would replace the amount of money taken in in voluntary contributions, according to the Catholic Primary School Management Association. Imagine the freedom a school principal would have. Imagine the time that would be saved by a school principal, who is supposed to be a learning leader. Rather than chasing after parents for money, organising fundraisers, turning off lights and worrying about heating bills, the principal could think and talk about the delivery and leading of learning. Imagine that. This is what I am challenging the Minister and her Department to do. They should think differently, just as was done in Finland 50 years ago, and dispense with all this tinkering around the edges. This is what is so depressing about these debates. It is so much tinkering around the edges.

We have come to the conclusion that a parent should expect to have to go to a fundraiser for his or her child's school. Is there not something utterly pathetic about that? However, we are just so used to it we accept it. The Minister would get broad support from across these Houses if she were to institute budgetary measures and the legislative underpinning to rule out certain things. Why do we not ban voluntary contributions rather than only making it more clear what they pay for? We should ban them. Alternatively, the Minister could take the view we could look towards what happened in Finland and say that over a period of time we could have a fully-funded education system that does not come down to conversations about money.

We could take the template from the Six Counties, where nobody puts their hand in their pocket for a book. We had to ask the Minister to get rid of the fee for the leaving certificate earlier this year. Again, those from the North who are living here think it bizarre one would have to pay money to sit a State exam. We accept all these things as being the norm, we tinker around the edges and have debates in this House, all while the Minister has such a capacity to drive forward a revolutionary change in the way education is run and in how schools are run. However, there is a poverty of mindset within the Department and people there who really do not think it is their problem. They do not think it is down to them. One has all the power with the individual patron bodies, the board of managements will do what they can do and then if a school must have a fundraiser then that is the way it goes. Inevitably, there is a deep inequality in that because as the Minister knows, in affluent areas people can raise an awful lot more than can those in areas of disadvantage. The Minister knows that. However, as long as she allows that to continue there is going to be a fundamental inequality in how schools can run themselves. I know this because, as Deputies across the House will be aware, we are in a post-Covid era and so the fundraisers have started again. Teachtaí Dála are getting requests to take out ads in various different fundraising booklets because are they beginning to ask their Teachtaí to come to fundraisers. Is it not absolutely pathetic that part of a Teachta Dála's job is to give money to a school fundraiser?

Why do we not completely recast our brains and come to the bizarre conclusion that maybe the State should just fund the schools, pay the bills and not have this constant, money-oriented, transactional conversation between school communities, parents and children? I know what it is like to chase a mother for the book-rental money. It is humiliating for the school and the parent. With the best of good will and from a genuine place, I challenge the Minister to go back to the Department and say maybe it is absolutely pathetic that in a republic there are such things as school fundraisers, voluntary contributions and that we ask parents to pay for schoolbooks. She should suggest we front-load the funding to our schools so all these transactional, financial conversations are replaced by conversations about education. Imagine that as a revolutionary thought. The Finns did it and it is the day-to-day reality in the North.

Rather than tinkering around the edges, let us have a genuine conversation about the State having a day-to-day, genuine funding role in the running of our schools and let us rule out certain elements of school community life, for example, being expected to raise money or contribute voluntarily to the running of a school and having to pay for a schoolbook. It is fundamentally pathetic. Until educational leaders such as the Minister and those in her Department get that into their heads, we will just be tinkering around the edges.

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