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

I appreciate the Acting Chairman's indulgence. The reason for my tardiness was because the Oireachtas football team was playing a game in Mountjoy Prison. It was an event we felt strongly about that included a representative from all political groupings here. We saw the power of education. By pure coincidence, there was a deputation at the Oireachtas committee today to speak about the power of education in the prison system. A total of 70% of prisoners are early school leavers. I remember reading an article a couple of years ago about the fact that in the US, they can predict the number of prison cells they will need in 15 years judging by the literacy rates of ten-year-olds.

I raise my experience and that of colleagues across the House playing a football match in Mountjoy Prison today in the context of the issues of literacy and the most disadvantaged because they are connected to the issue of school costs. Far too many of our conversations in our school communities are not about education, children, child development, literacy or numeracy. They are about money. I feel like I have made this speech about 14 times. I am quite sure Deputy Ó Laoghaire, who I thank for putting forward this motion, is sick of hearing me making the same speech over and over again but it is true that we have replaced the conversation in schools about children and education with a constant conversation about money. I was that teacher; I was that principal. You interact with the parent body on the basis of the money your school does not have to run itself so you chase the book money. Your parents' association effectively acts like a fundraising body. There are so many conversations about money.

Principals and teachers do not want to be dealing with the administration of money. They do not want to chase parents’ associations to raise money. It should be considered completely pathetic that a school has to fundraise for basic provisions. We know what will happen in X well-heeled community versus in Y not-so-well-heeled community when it comes to fundraising. Some will have the money, and some will not.

Schoolbooks in Northern Ireland are free. There is no reason schoolbooks should not be free in the Republic of Ireland. It would cost the Government €20 million at primary level and €20 million at secondary level. Voluntary contributions, as has been mentioned, are not voluntary. People feel as if they cannot fully engage in school life unless they come up with a voluntary contribution. How humiliating must it be for a parent who does not have the voluntary contribution to engage in school life when they feel that they are getting constant reminders about this voluntary contribution, which can be linked to the availability of a certain resource within the school, a locker, etc? Surely, we need to ban that and just provide the €45 million that the Catholic Primary School Management Association suggests will be needed to replace that voluntary contribution funding. Let us do it. That is €40 million plus €45 million, which gives a total of €85 million. Making the back to school clothing and footwear allowance available to all families and making universal payments will cost approximately €125 million. In totting up of those numbers, I have not even come halfway to the figure of €500 million, which the Government gave away in tax cuts last year. These are the arguments that we will make and that the Government will make over the next couple of months. The Government will talk to the country and to the squeezed middle about the tax burden. It will focus its attention on that €1 billion that it wants to throw away on tax cuts, rather than helping every citizen with their constitutional right to a free education.

The Department does not want a free books scheme because its officials wants to have an arm’s length relationship with the school system. They thinks that it is a matter for patron bodies and for boards of management to run schools and that it is not for the Department to get involved. That is their attitude. It feels to me that they have the Minister and Minister of State that it wants. They are driving the bus and the Minister and Minister of State are sitting on it. Whatever they say goes. There is no radical view to unburden parents of this money conversation and to let loose a conversation about children.

Can you imagine, a Chathaoirleach, how liberated a parent would be if they were able to go to a school gate and not be worried about being asked about money? Could you imagine how liberating it would be for a parent to go to a parent-teacher meeting and not to be worried about money? Could you imagine how liberating it would be for a parent to not worry about the child coming home from school with a reminder about money? I have not even spoken about the children yet. Could you imagine how liberating it would be for a child to be in a class and not to be reminded in various different subtle ways about money, such as book money, voluntary contribution, the fundraiser that is coming up, etc?

While it is about the money, it is not just about the money; it is also about all those conversations that are being lost. This is about parents who may have had a difficult engagement with the education system. Maybe they were early school leavers or their experience in school was not the best and they would like to engage a little more. Sometimes fathers in education find it difficult to re-engage with the school. They find it daunting and intimidating. Would they be less or more likely to engage with school life or with a school community if it they thought that they were going to be asked about money? I would say that the answer is less.

The Government has flitted away €500 million on tax cuts for some people this year. It is determined to do cut twice that amount next year. Yet, it could lift the entire country and make people proud to be in an education system that provides books for free, does not ask for voluntary contributions and has the back to school clothing and footwear allowance for everybody and replaces that really humiliating, debilitating feeling that people cannot engage in school life because they keep being asked for money.

I will sum up what I am saying. I have said it many times and I know that the Minister has heard it many times. I appreciate the opportunity afforded to me by Deputy Ó Laoghaire and the Acting Chairman for sandwiching me into the debate this evening. Education is so precious. You only know how precious education is when you meet those who did not have the opportunity to fulfil their potential within it. I met loads of them today.

Some 70% of prisoners are early school leavers while 17.9% of the adult population is functionally illiterate. One third of children who leave a primary DEIS school have basic reading difficulties. We have problems and, therefore, the issues we need to discuss regarding schools are education, literacy, diet, oral language, family literacy, school community engagement, sport, health, parenting and so on. Yet, the tragedy of the education system is that we spend so much time talking about money. The parents’ association is effectively a fundraising body, as are we as politicians. Let us be honest here. We all get the requests to take out advertisements from the local primary school or secondary school when it is running a fundraiser. Is that not pathetic? Can we all recast our brains for a second? Is it not pathetic that a politician would be asked to take out an advertisement by a primary school, which has to run a fundraiser to keep the lights on? Is that not pathetic? Can we all step back from this for a second and ask why we are not just funding the schools so they can keep the lights on and not constantly have to chase people for money or voluntary contributions?

Here are the maths. There must be €20 million for a primary school free book scheme, whereby nobody has to bother with a school book list anymore and the school just provides them. We would not have to worry about that anymore. There must be €20 million for second level. That amounts to €40 million. There must be €45 million to fund schools centrally and properly so they do not need to have voluntary contributions. There must be €125 million for a universal back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme, notwithstanding the announcement that the Minister made earlier, which, I am quite sure, was on the foot of the motion had been tabled. That is how the Government reacts. It wants to have some way of counteracting Opposition motions because it does not do the governing itself. I have not even come up to half the amount that, as I said, the Government flitted away in tax cuts last year. Please do something for families who want to talk about education and not about money, take this issue seriously and deliver on the right to free education, which has been a myth since it was enshrined in the Constitution so many years ago.

See this speech in context