Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)

First, I welcome to the Gallery today Diarmaid Dulohery from Blarney, Louise Ahern, Pat Egan and my brother, Mark Kenny. This is the first time most of them have been in Leinster House and I wish them a fantastic day. I welcome this debate. It is seriously important but with this debate, I would appreciate that we would take these issues on board and work with them.

I will begin in relation to leaving certificate reform. As the Minister will be aware, this is something that I have a great passion about because I taught in two secondary schools and my subject of business is part of tranche 1, which will be part of the reform come this September. I appreciate that this is an enormous change in the senior cycle curriculum. However, I have my reservations about it. They have to be appreciated because I share these reservations with the majority of secondary school teachers and parents across the country. I genuinely believe it is a rushed reform. It has been thought out for a number of years but what we are doing right now is almost providing incentives for teachers to take it on board, with this 5% pay increase and getting a contract after one year in the school. It will favour children from more affluent families as well.

I have stated on the floor of the House previously that, as we are all well aware, we have vocational schools across the country that have 100-year-old infrastructure in place. I know there has been funding allocated towards science laboratories, in particular, but it is not covering the cost. That is what I am hearing from science teachers. The Irish Science Teachers Association requested a meeting with the Minister and that has not taken place. I would appreciate if that would take place because they have serious concerns and they are the ones on the ground in our laboratories teaching in our schools. I would appreciate if that contact could be made. It is also important to recognise that in the majority of the private schools across the country we have employed laboratory technicians and we do not have them in the public schools. As I said, the infrastructure that is in place is not adequate to deal with these changes.

The last time health and safety guidelines were introduced for leaving certificate science was 1996. We are proceeding with the redevelopment of science, biology, chemistry and physics without any updated health and safety guidelines in the science laboratories. The last ones were before I was even born.

We have serious issues in relation to special educational needs. I do not doubt the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan's bona fides on this. The Minister of State is a man of integrity. I recognise the work both he and the Minister have done. I recognise that 399 new special classes have been opened but I fear that we are still almost trying to catch up with the disaster that has been in the education system for the past ten to 15 years. I still am dealing with parents on a daily basis who cannot get access to what they would consider an appropriate school place. I welcome that school places are opening but we need to talk about appropriate school places. They are essential. If we do not open appropriate school places, we will have children travelling long distances throughout their county to get to school.

I will focus, in particular, on my own constituency of Cork North-Central. I absolutely welcome that a special school will be opening in Carrignavar but we need to work on the logistics of it far quicker than we are working on them right now because we cannot allow children who have special educational needs to be travelling to Fermoy to go to school. We need to get the ball rolling now, get this over the line and get Carrignavar opened again. Of particular relevance in this regard - it spans across the Ministry for housing as well - is the wastewater treatment plant there. If we are opening a school there, the wastewater treatment plant will play a significant role. I appreciate that Carrignavar is being sanctioned a special school.

DEIS plus was recognised in the Minister's contribution today but I still do not see any budget or concrete timeframe on the introduction of DEIS plus. I was privileged to teach in a poor socioeconomic area in Cork city where there are serious barriers to education for a lot of children who are brought up in families which might not value education as much as other families throughout the country.

I was privileged to get the opportunity to teach those students and to play an important role in their lives. However, there are still serious barriers to education for many people. We still have voluntary contributions in most of our voluntary schools across the country. Paying for uniforms is still an enormous cost for parents. I welcome the roll-out of the hot meals school programme. I have seen it at first hand. It operated in the school I taught in. I welcome that. It is appropriate and fitting. However, we need to look at the further costs imposed on parents. I ask for a concrete timeframe for DEIS plus and a concrete budget in respect of the public expenditure that is going to be involved.

I spoke about access to third level in a committee meeting yesterday and I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Lawless, about it on the floor of the Dáil the other day. This needs to be focused on. I appreciate the fact that the leaving certificate applied programme and the LCVP are being taken up by far more students. That is absolutely to be welcomed. I did the LCVP myself. It is a fantastic subject and really does set you up. The preparation of your CV and other parts of that curriculum are absolutely essential. We should also try to get students into apprenticeships. We must provide them with those opportunities.

I will also specifically focus on the staff within our schools. I have brought up the role of the special educational needs co-ordinator with the Minister in the Dáil previously. This role is an assistant principal 1 post. As I have seen throughout all of my time both as a student and as a teacher, the role of special educational needs co-ordinator must be a stand-alone position. We are putting people who have been promoted to an AP1 post into this position despite the fact that they may have had no training in the role. The role of special educational needs co-ordinator must be a stand-alone position.

I will also speak about special needs assistants, SNAs. I previously asked about an SNA freeze. I was told this did not happen and that no directive was sent out. The principal of a school in Mallow who contacted me was told over the phone that this was what had happened. A school principal has also told my colleague, Deputy Ahern, who represents Dublin South-West, over the phone that this was what they had been told by the SENO. There was obviously nothing in writing. I am not saying anything. Perhaps it is not true but I ask the Minister to once again clarify the role of special needs assistants and to provide sanction for more of them. We have the highest number of them in our system ever. That is absolutely true but the modern classroom is changing so significantly that we need far more. Sanctioning such posts is an absolute priority.

I will speak about secretaries. My grandmother has been a secretary in a primary school for the last 30 years. She is 70 years old and will retire without a pension. That is a fact. We need to take a serious look at pension parity for all staff, including caretakers, secretaries and all ancillary staff throughout the country.

We also need to look at incentives to undertake the professional master of education programme. I was lucky enough to have done a bachelor's degree in education and so did not have to pay the €6,000 or €7,000 each year for the two years of a professional master of education programme. We need incentives. We must also look at how to attract teachers who have left Ireland back to our country. Perhaps we should look at their place on our incremental scale. As I have asked previously, would it be possible to put people who have spent four years teaching in England on point 4 of the incremental scale when they come back?

To mention a personal point of view that we have also raised in a Private Members' motion, it is absolutely necessary that teachers have the opportunity to upskill in seizure first aid in school. That is a personal thing for me. I would appreciate it if the Minister's Department could look at providing free seizure first aid training for all staff, including SNAs, caretakers, teachers and school management.

The issue of the capitation grant per student is constantly being raised with me. Schools are being referred to the FSSU. They just do not have enough money. The Minister has assisted me with particular cases and I really appreciate that but it is absolutely necessary to look at the capitation grant per student.

We called for a national assembly on education in our 2024 manifesto. I would appreciate it if all stakeholders could be involved once the Department calls a national assembly. I appreciate that the Minister's is a very extensive role. I will continue to work with her but we have serious challenges to outcome.

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