Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that the Minister has made some very positive changes when it comes to schoolbooks in particular. As she knows, my wife is a schoolteacher. My wife hails from the Minister's county but she teaches in Tipperary. In fairness, the Minister has visited my wife's school and brought good news with her. I have to acknowledge that.

I also very much welcome the changes in regard to hot meals. I feel the Minister is visionary in looking at changes to the leaving certificate, and maybe other forces should be coming more with the Minister, or that would be our opinion in the Labour Party.

There are a number of issues I would like to raise with the Minister. The first is the issue of private schools. Ideologically, I just cannot understand how, as a State, we can continue to give €121 million to private schools. It is nobody's business. If people want to send their children to private schools, that is their business. They should pay for doing so, however. The State is giving these schools €121 million - up from €89 million in 2020. What could that €121 million do in respect of the range of issues that my colleague has just spoken about? This is elitism; it is totally wrong and it has to be stopped. It is one of the first things that I argued when I first came into this Chamber in 2011.

I would also like the Minister to supply to the House a breakdown of the private schools across the country. By the way, Tipperary has quite a number of them and I say that as somebody who represents those areas. It would be interesting to get a breakdown of the volume of Ukrainian and refugee children who are attending these schools as opposed to public schools.

On the schools building programme, I want to raise the issue of Newport College on behalf of my colleague, Councillor Fiona Bonfield, and the principal and the staff there. There is a situation where the school has been approved for a large extension and, in the interim, it has been approved for five prefabs. The construction process has already begun so money has been wasted, and now they have been told they are not actually getting those prefabs. This is a town that is growing exponentially because of the spillover from regeneration in Limerick. The school population is 270. It will be 345 next year and 375 the following year. The only solution that was proposed when the principal and the education and training board in Tipperary argued in this regard was that they should take over the small canteen in the school. That is incredible.

What is going on with these 58 schools? Are there 58? What is the secrecy about naming them? This is probably a matter that the Committee of Public Accounts is going to deal with at some stage. What is the issue with naming the schools involved? Is the list final? Is there are debate about whether some schools are going forwards or backwards? We understand and acknowledge that there are changes in the context of inflation, but these are critical. Surely the Government can find funding for the schools. Good money has been thrown after bad, and Newport College and the children in the surrounding area are losing out significantly because of it.

On school transport, we are now coming to what I would call the annual madness in respect of the fact that we do not have enough places and it is oversubscribed, which is a good thing. I know of a ridiculous situation where the son of one of my neighbours - he is nearly a next-door neighbour - could not get a place on the bus that brings him to secondary school. Even though his uncle drives the bus and lives in the next house and even though the bus is parked on his father's land overnight, he could not get on it because it was oversubscribed. Eventually, we got there, but we all know of hundreds of cases like this across the country, with people contacting us all year long. This is something that is very easy to solve. The co-ordination between the Departments of Education and Transport could be looked at. I suggested previously that this matter should really be under the Department of Transport rather than the Department of Education.

In the context of circular 0006/2023, I understand that the staffing appeals board is independent as regards staffing allocations. For the life of me, however, I cannot understand some of the decisions that are made. I do not understand, for example, how, in light of the number of children in the area and the number of special needs children in the autism spectrum disorder, ASD, units, Puckaun school cannot be independently assigned the teachers it requires.

With regard to ASD and special educational needs organiser, SENO, assessments, unfortunately, many kids have these assessments done privately but schools are sometimes not prepared for the technology needed to meet those kids' requirements. There are not enough ASD units. I encourage the Minister to use the legislation brought in by Deputy McHugh to designate areas to have ASD units.

I will bring up two cases. One relates to a young boy in Coole National School in Westmeath. His mother, whom I spoke to today, cannot afford to get the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, assessment the Christian Brothers secondary school in Mullingar is insisting upon. What is the solution? What can I tell this lady about her son, who obviously needs this NEPS assessment? I will also mention a young child from my own village of Portroe who has extra needs and cannot be supported through the local ASD unit any more. There are only two real options for him to go to: the special school in Lisnagry in Limerick or St. Anne's Special School in Roscrea. Both schools always tend to be full. How can we ensure this child's education will progress as it deserves to, given the small allocation for children with needs like his in these units?

See this speech in context