Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)

Education is the foundation of every society, and education has been spoken about in this Chamber and in committee rooms on numerous occasions. Ireland should have an education system that is inclusive, equitable and accessible to every child and young person regardless of his or her postcode, income, ability or background, yet day after day and week after week, the truth of the poor supports, exclusion and inequality are told to politicians and the media, and more and more support groups have been set up to advocate for children and young people and learners who are on the margins. Shamefully, this Government is attempting to spin a €500 increase in student fees as a reduction.

No one is buying this, least of all the students and their families. The Government has betrayed students today. No one needs a PhD in maths to realise that a reduction of €500 is less than the €1,000 in reduced fees last year. I do not want to hear the excuse about it being a cost-of-living measure. The Government parties went to the voters last year promising this reduction. It misled them and now it is not keeping its promise. Students are our future. The Government has turned a very large active cohort against it. I hope they never forget how, when the country was very wealthy, the Government chose not to keep its promise.

In Ireland, investment in primary through to tertiary education stands at only 2.8% of GDP. That is below the OECD average of 4.7%. The provision of funding to third level institutions for the development of courses, research and student-priced accommodation should be at the forefront of investment in our education system. We have heard about the resourcing for occupational therapy and speech and language therapies at primary and post-primary level time and again, but those extra places have, unfortunately, been put in with additional health and medical courses instead of increasing support for what we see are threadbare supports. The future of student accommodation in our third level institutions is in jeopardy due to the lack of support being given. I know it was said that the Government would do something at Maynooth and UCD but those projects already exist, so that is nothing new. What about the technological universities? Nothing. There is no mention of them. I am glad to see there will be an investment in apprenticeships because those are working very well. That is very welcome.

Community and adult education is a service not only to individuals but also our society. Investment in staffing, classrooms, resources and support to learners is vital to ensure this vulnerable cohort of learners thrive and love learning. Youthreach and community and training centres are the unsung heroes of our education system. They provide second-chance or alternative education to students who have often had a negative experience of mainstream school. They provide QQI qualifications. However, staff in community training centres have not been fully brought into the public sector pay agreements, despite being under the same umbrella as Youthreach, for training and education. Again, we do not even see that addressed in the budget this year.

This budget should have placed educational disadvantage at the core of its message but it did not. Free books for all are welcome, as are free hot school meals for everyone. These are big sellable items that will no doubt help many families. However, evidence shows that targeted support is far more effective for the most vulnerable in our society. Measures such as support for devices that are ever more common in schools are not mentioned. These devices cost a lot of money but books are still needed. Free books for students have a knock-on effect for the local economy. Local bookshops are now not stocking schoolbooks and businesses are being halted because people are going straight to the publishers. Costly uniforms are still an issue for parents annually, despite Circular 32/2017. For those not fluent in Department of education lingo, that was published in 2017. It requested that schools use generic uniforms that can have iron-on or sew-on crests. This does not seem to have come into effect in schools. Free hot meals are available to students, but the cost is enormous. The quality of meals, as reported to my office and to the offices of many of my colleagues, is not fit for purpose. There is massive waste on a daily basis. It does not seem to have been thought through properly. We have a review of it, from a nutritional point of view, but we are only now being issued with guidelines on how things are supposed to be going, despite the scheme running for a lengthy period.

The school completion programme, which I have long advocated and worked for, has the potential to prevent early school-leaving and re-engage very vulnerable students, but it remains plagued by outdated governance structures, inconsistent funding and precarious employment for its staff. The budget does not even mention the school completion programme but the local management committees and staff on these projects are used to being ignored. DEIS Plus is welcome but I have no doubt there will be pilots and evaluations, it will roll along, and then there will be a realisation that it was not properly monitored and there was not enough investment, another new idea will come along and we will pilot that one for a while. While I am very hopeful for it, and many schools I have worked with throughout my time in the school completion programme will be very happy to see DEIS Plus, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

With regard to evidence that shows our young people and children are under stress and their emotional and mental well-being needs to be supported, we need to have specialist carers for emotional support for young people in our schools. However, this is going at such a slow pace that by the time it is fully rolled out to special primary and secondary schools, those children currently in junior infants will probably not see it at all.

Not one person has mentioned class sizes. We have the largest class sizes in the EU. The EU average is 19 and ours is 23. Children cannot learn in overcrowded classrooms. They just cannot. This issue is constantly mentioned by students, teachers, parents and unions, so it is flabbergasting that it has not even been mentioned today.

Let us talk about the basics of school buildings. The physical condition of our schools matters. In too many cases, children are still being taught in prefabs without proper ventilation or accessibility. Sometimes, these are in terrible condition. This is a costly outlay on an annual basis. For a three-year period, it was €86 million. In 2024, 440 schools were renting prefabs to the tune of €28.8 million. What should not be forgotten is the impact on climate as well as the children. These buildings are costly to run and poorly insulated. We need a proper and comprehensive plan to phase out prefab classrooms and replace them with modern energy-efficient buildings that serve our students for the long term. The Government has plans to roll out a school buildings programme. Quite frankly, I wish that every success. I am not very hopeful because it is quite an ambitious target.

It is an utter disgrace that any school in this country needs to ask for voluntary contributions in order to cover the cost of rising insurance and energy bills, to put in ICT systems, to repair sports facilities and to do the basics of what any modern State school should have. I see that capitation grants have risen, but not to the tune that will really work and prevent parents having to go out to do fundraisers. It is not up to school leaders and parents to constantly have to do fundraisers for the basics. Of course, if they want to fundraise for a trip or other icing-on-the-cake things, that is fantastic, but we definitely should not have that for the basics.

The lack of special education places remains a huge concern, particularly for children with autism and complex needs. The Department continually operates on a reactive and not proactive basis. Its promises and plans for special education have not come to fruition. As of 1 October, 24 children were without an appropriate school place. A further 160 children have school places on paper but there is no physical school building for them to attend. Therefore, they do not have school places. Promising phantom school places for children with additional needs is where the reality versus the paper exercise that has been done by the Government can be seen. This is the reality of what has happened. The stress this has caused parents and those children is immense.

We welcome the announcement that there will be an additional 1,717 SNAs and 860 special education teachers. However, as of August this year, there were 600 vacant teacher posts. I am wondering where these additional 860 special educational teachers will be found. Perhaps, if I were asked, I would say they were probably in Dubai or Australia living the life they could have over there that they could not possibly wish to have here. Unless this Government wants to make the country affordable to young graduate teachers, these vacancies will continue. The additional SNAs are welcome but I am a little concerned that this is more fiddling of numbers. It seems to me a grandiose announcement that will take the heat off the Government for the current absolute confusion and fear it has caused due to the new SNA review, the SNA workforce development unit and the long-awaited clarification of the role of SNAs.

A world-class education system is not a utopian dream. It is a political choice. We have the resources and the expertise. What we need is political will.

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