Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Cork Life Centre, on Winter's Hill, Cork, is a one-of-a-kind institution. It is a voluntary organisation offering an alternative learning environment to marginalised young people. The centre and its staff often offer one-to-one tuition in junior certificate and leaving certificate subjects but, for the staff of Cork Life Centre, value is placed on social education just as much as the academic. The centre focuses on fostering positive relationships between students and staff. Supports are continuously offered to students with regard to any challenges they might face inside the school environment or at home and in the students' community. The centre is not officially recognised as an alternative educational facility and funding until recently has been minimal. I note the extra supports the Minister has provided, primarily through one-off funding from the social inclusion section of her Department and through much-improved provision of co-operation hours in conjunction with Cork Education and Training Board, Cork ETB. I also commend the Minister on her visit to the centre during the summer. I understand she was greatly impressed by all she experienced during her visit.

Turning to the point of my Topical Issue matter, the Minister and I are both qualified teachers, are both registered with the Teaching Council and received payment commensurate with our qualifications. That is fair and right. The same is not being afforded to many of the staff in Cork Life Centre. Many of the staff there are not paid a rate commensurate with their qualifications or their experience. Some of these people have master's degrees. Others have spent a lifetime working with children with exceptional needs and students who come from very challenging backgrounds. It is time those suitably qualified staff working within this organisation had their qualifications reflected in their terms and conditions and in their pay packets. It is not appropriate for the current situation to continue.

Since the Minister's elevation to office, she has been a very progressive Minister for Education. She has initiated the school transport review, which was ignored by successive Ministers before her. There has been record spending on special education, now amounting to €2.7 billion. Most recently, in the budget she committed to €5 million to be diverted to counselling services in schools. The regularisation of qualified teaching staff and pay and conditions at Cork Life Centre could be another progressive footnote in that series of achievements. I beg the Minister to consider this in the interest of fairness and equality in the workplace.

Back in 2013, when I was lucky enough to buy my first house, I found it incredibly difficult to get a mortgage. I was still a temporary teacher; I had no permanency. I can understand the difficulties many in Cork Life Centre face at the moment. To get a mortgage, let alone a car loan, would be quite difficult in the current environment. We need to look at this, it needs to be dealt with and I would welcome the Minister's response in that regard.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his question and his ongoing interest in Cork Life Centre. The centre, in Sunday's Well, caters for young people who have encountered challenges in completing mainstream education. The centre is one of a number of such alternative education providers nationally.

The Department of Education has provided funding to Cork Life Centre for the last number of years, with that support increasing significantly since 2018. In 2022 the Department will provide funding of €177,500, as well as 6,000 co-operation hours, in conjunction with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.

In June of last year, as the Deputy alluded to, I was fortunate enough to visit the centre and had the opportunity to meet young people who attend the centre, their parents and guardians, staff from the centre and the management of the centre. I concur with the Deputy that I was truly impressed and grateful to have the opportunity to engage, particularly to engage directly with the centre's young people, to listen to them and to hear from them about their experience of Cork Life Centre. It really was a positive engagement from their point of view.

During that meeting, the centre raised the issues of security of employment for their staff and terms and conditions, including payment rates for the centre's teaching staff. Staff employed in Cork Life Centre, under the co-operation hours arrangements by Cork Education and Training Board, are employed under terms and conditions, including pay scales, in line with arrangements which apply to settings outside the recognised school system. It is generally not unusual that tutors may hold qualifications that entitle them to recognised teacher status or registration with the Teaching Council, but payment rates and terms and conditions are generally dependent on the setting or sector in which a person is employed.

A commitment was given to examine the circumstances around the payment of teachers at Cork Life Centre. I am committed to honouring that agreement through the Review of Out-of-School Education Provision. That review was carried out by a working group comprising representatives of stakeholders, including the Department of Education, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Tusla, SOLAS, Education and Training Boards Ireland and the National Educational Psychological Service.

The report on the review was published in May 2022. The review finds that out-of-school education settings are providing an important role in maintaining contact with education and supporting well-being for a key cohort of learners who have encountered challenges in mainstream settings through adopting a holistic approach based around the individual. However, approaches to the education curriculum, certification and education pathways for students are highly dependent on what can be provided for in each setting.

Cork Life Centre is seeking sustainability for the future, which is what the Review of Out-of-School Education Provision aims to provide for the entire sector as a whole.

It is intended that implementation of the report's recommendations will include developing criteria for structures, governance and level of education provision, including scoping out costs associated with such settings providing education for students who have encountered difficulties completing mainstream education.

The work on the implementation is ongoing at present and is up and running. I confirm that to the House.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the investment the Minister has put into the centre over the past few years, which, as she has detailed, is €177,500, as well as the 6,000 co-operation hours. That is not in dispute and is greatly welcomed by all at the centre, including Don O'Leary and Rachel Lucey. I welcome the commitment the Minister has given to honour the agreement, as she has said, through the Review of Out-of-School Education Provision. Could the Minister give me some clarity in her supplementary response? Are we looking at that review concluding this year or next year? How long will that review process take? That is important. As the Minister has intimated in her answer, the issue here is the sustainability of the centre and other institutions like it right across the country into the future.

It would give people great peace of mind if they thought a conclusion to that process would happen soon.

I will finish with some remarks by the President of University College Cork, UCC, Professor John O'Halloran, in relation to the Cork Life Centre, when he conferred an honorary doctorate on Mr. Don O'Leary. He described Mr. O'Leary as a "true pioneer of education" and a champion for those who can flourish outside of mainstream school settings, given the right opportunity. He went on to say that staff at UCC had seen first-hand the work that Mr. O'Leary had put in to ensuring that no child is left behind. Don O'Leary and his team at the Cork Life Centre can only continue in that vein with the appropriate staffing. The longer we delay finding a lasting solution for the centre and its counterparts, the worse the outcome will be. Time is of the essence here and the Minister is well aware of that. I welcome her commitment and ask her to provide clarity on when the review might conclude.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I reiterate that I am determined to ensure that the implementation of the recommendations of the review of out of school education provision will allow all children and young people to be supported throughout their education and to achieve their fullest potential. The review is successfully completed and we have now moved on to the implementation process and the work on that has already begun. I am very keen to see progress made on the implementation of the recommendations of the report. In the interim, the level of funding currently provided to Cork Life Centre will continue. As the Deputy said, that amounts to €177,500 as well as the quite substantial 6,000 co-operation hours which are being provided in conjunction with the Department of Education. Until such time as the recommendations of the report are implemented, this funding will be in place and will provide ongoing support for the centre.

I also give the Deputy a commitment that the Department will continue engagement with Cork Life Centre to determine a framework for sustainability for the centre and its staffing. Sustainability for the future is what Cork Life Centre has requested and is what it is seeking. Indeed, it is what the review of out of school education provision aims to provide for the sector as a whole, including Cork Life Centre. The body of work to advance the implementation of the recommendations is now under way and will be completed as soon as possible. There is an absolute commitment that this will include, as I have said already, looking at many of the issues that the Deputy has raised.