Ann Graves (Dublin Fingal East, Sinn Fein)

The education of our young people is hugely important. We need to ensure it is carried out in a supportive and inclusive environment.

Sinn Féin has a long-standing policy on choice and diversification in education. In our manifesto in 2024, we committed to developing a new strategy to support existing and emerging demands for diversification of patronage in school. This includes State co-education, multidenominational and community schools based on the provision of high-quality and inclusive education.

The Government has said it will conduct a survey of parents on their preferred ethos for schools. In a recent response, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, indicated she intends to launch a survey of primary school communities shortly and that further details regarding the survey would be announced in due course. We need to know the details. We need a timeline for when this will happen. It needs to be rolled out as a matter of urgency.

The Government has not delivered on previous commitments. The Minister must ensure adequate availability for students seeking to attend a multidenominational or non-denominational school. Engaging with parents, staff and pupils has to be a priority. The results of a recent INTO survey show that our education system must evolve to reflect Ireland's diversity and multiculturalism.

Teachers urge the Government to speed up the divestment process and to actively invest in the growth of inclusive schools. The Government must immediately expand the number of non-denominational and multidenominational schools to reach its previous target of having 400 such schools by 2030. It is deeply concerning to parents that this target was dropped from the 2025 programme for Government. We need to see some real progress.

The Government should improve the pilot programme intended to facilitate the transfer of school patronage in cities, including Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick. There must be greater engagement with stakeholders and the community. The process relating to divestment must be established to retain the confidence of all stakeholders.

Students must also have the right to be educated through Gaeilge. It is hugely important that the Government provide full access to education through the medium of Irish. I applaud the Sord Mullach Íde Gaelscoil campaign. It is striving to provide education through Irish in Fingal east, Swords and Malahide. At present, we have four Gaelscoileanna but we have no meánscoil for the children to progress to. Children have to commute outside of the area to attend secondary school in Irish and the school transport system does not pay for them to do so. The Minister needs to look at progression from Gaelscoileanna into meánscoileanna.

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