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

Governments are defined by the budgets they produce and the money they allocate to issues they feel are important, and we get a chance once a year to reflect on those statements by Governments about what they deem to be important. In these Houses, when we learn of people from other parties who are resigning or not running again, we sometimes wonder why we get up in the morning and come here to do this job.

We wonder why we come in here and we reflect on that. Politics is a big influence on all our lives and it has a negative influence as well, but the reason I get up in the morning and the thing I care passionately about more than anything else is disadvantaged education. It is probably at the top of my priority list every time I get up in the morning, and every time I think about anything in terms of my political life, it is disadvantaged education. I could criticise the education budget and the fact class sizes have not been reduced even though they are the biggest in Europe. I could talk about the capitation allocation, which is less than last year and the fact people are saying they will not be able to run their schools. I could talk about many other issues in education where there are failures in this budget. Education is the great liberator. There is no better or more effective way proven anywhere in the world of getting out of poverty than education. It is the only thing that works. That is proven internationally.

A government that is serious about educational disadvantage is one that is serious about child poverty. I was delighted when the Taoiseach announced, when he resumed the role last year, that child poverty was to be his great burning passion. In fairness, you have to meet that statement where it is. You do not want to be disrespectful to that statement because you do not want to play politics with child poverty, but there is one thing that will move a child out of poverty and it is education. It empowers the child to move out of their own situation. I am looking at the allocation to education with respect to a very deliberate proposal from a number of DEIS principals from three geographic areas in Dublin, covering around 30 schools. They are asking for a new DEIS-plus designation. They want that designation because they are scared out of their wits about what is in front of them with the children they are dealing with. They tell me some children are already lost. They say the pandemic has compounded educational disadvantage. They are dealing with parents who are showing suicidal ideation more than they ever did before and children who are hungry. Parents are changing the route to swimming during the week because they are afraid of being caught in the gunfire of a local dispute. These are real, genuine situations in disadvantaged schools. These principals have asked for trauma-based supports so the children they are dealing with will be in a position to move beyond the situation they are in and perhaps maximise their potential. The potential of these children is unknown, but it is being dogged by the circumstances of where they are from, intergenerational poverty, intergenerational trauma and intergenerational educational disadvantage.

The proposal was made to the Department of Education. What is most depressing is the Minister for Education and her officials could have said they had listened to the principals and were going to make a grand gesture, a generational change of investment in this area, because they had heard what the principals were saying about the lives that are at risk. Whenever it comes to talking about antisocial behaviour, the answer is more gardaí. Whenever we talk about crime, the answer is more gardaí. It is always a law-and-order response, but the DEIS-plus proposal would have a more profound impact on antisocial behaviour and crime over the course of a childhood than any other measure. The Minister says it is under review. The horse and greyhound fund is getting a 4.4% increase up to €96 million, with no review necessary. I have come to conclusion these children are better off being horses or greyhounds because those get invested in. However, because they are children in disadvantaged areas going to DEIS schools with principals who are crying out for supports for them because of the trauma they are going through, which is intergenerational, we will just have to review it.

In all the conversations about the budget we will talk about tax and we will talk about spend. We will talk about pensions and we will talk about social protection. We will talk about tax changes. We will talk about the squeezed middle and the tax burden. We will talk about all these different debating points, but it is my responsibility, due to the background I come from, to speak purely about the one chance these children have and ask for somebody, somewhere in government to listen to their life experience and to what the principals are telling them. The principals spoke to the social inclusion unit of the Department of Education about the 100 or so schools that have been identified. What came out in the budget? It is under review. Then you need only turn a page to see the horse and greyhound fund has had a 4.4% increase to €96 million, thank you very much. That is what I find most depressing about this job I do, because it gives me absolutely no pleasure to make remarks like this. These children do not deserve to be under review; they deserve to be invested in. In some circumstances they deserve to be saved, but they definitely deserve to be invested in and empowered and DEIS-plus would be a simple win for this Government and would absolutely be a win for these children.

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