Rónán Mullen (Independent)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. The Minister of State is welcome to the House. Like my cousin and colleague, Senator Mullins, I, too, am happy to welcome a person from my own neck of the woods and to wish him very well in his brief.

This is an important debate. It is increasingly difficult to have these debates in the sense that we all want to affirm the profound importance of investment in education and, in particular, the importance of the maintenance of resources and services to people with various kinds of special needs, whether they be resource teachers, special needs assistants, SNAs, or language assistance teachers to assist children with their English language skills. Just as we can always say with certainty that investment in education is never wasted because of its importance to our economic revival, apart from the overwhelming and important requirements of human dignity and recognising the role of education in the flourishing of each human being, we can also say that with regard to the needs of children for whom English is not their first language and is in effect a foreign language, we are in the zone of the stitch in time saving nine. Money spent in language support is about various issues but most of all it is about the maintenance of standards. If we do not have investment in language support, apart from the damage that will be done to the children, there is also the question of standards in our education system, and quality in our education system is key if we are to restore and maintain competitiveness. All these issues are fite fuaite lena chéile.

Despite the fact that we must be realistic about the economic challenges we face and we are aware of the cutbacks, we can and must continue to insist that a special case will always be made for education. It is clear from the Minister of State's speech, and we knew this in any event, that a special case has been made for education over the years. As he pointed out, a third of our public sector numbers are tied in with the education system, €1 billion euro has been spent on special needs and there has been a tenfold increase over a decade in the provision of education for those with special needs, but now tá an crú ag teacht ar an tairne. We are at a time of crisis and there is a danger that mistakes will be made because of the need to stay within the employment control framework and so on.

A particular issue to which the Irish National Teachers Organisation has rightly drawn attention is the impact on resource teaching caused by a fall-off in the provision for language support teachers. Schools have been forced to utilise the resources of their learning support teachers and, as the INTO has rightly pointed out, this is not a viable long-term solution. The Minister of State will know that a learning support and resource teacher caters for children with learning delays or with a high incidence disability such as mild general learning disability and dyslexia. These resource teachers add to the support given by the class teacher and every primary school has this support. The main aim of this learning support is to help pupils with learning difficulties to improve their literacy and numeracy skills to a set standard before they leave primary school, but if there is any diversion of resources away from learning support, it is a deeply flawed approach. This is happening. Schools are eating into their learning support hours to make up for this fall-off in provision and that is a serious problem.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment in Interculturalism Education in the Primary School: Guidelines for Schools points out:

Education not only reflects society but also influences its development. As such, schools have a role to play in the development of an intercultural society. While education cannot bear the sole responsibility for challenging racism and promoting intercultural competence, it has an important contribution to make in facilitating the development of the child's intercultural skills, attitudes, values and knowledge. An intercultural education is valuable to all children in equipping them to participate in an increasingly diverse society. Equally, an education which is based on only one culture will be less likely to develop these capacities in children.

This highlights a second issue, namely, that failure to provide adequate language support teachers for minority ethnic students can lead to such students failing to obtain sufficient results leading to unemployment and ghettoisation in society.

A staff of approximately 1,400 provides language assistance and a staff of close to 10,000 provides resource teaching. The Minister of State said that approximately 90% of the identified resource teaching allocations can be made to schools, but in terms of the position of leaving schools waiting until the autumn to find out their precise allocations, I wonder what impact that will have on school planning and so on. The business of timetabling, preparing and planning in schools is already difficult and I wonder whether unnecessary and avoidable chaos is also being introduced into school timetables and into the smooth operation of schools.

In welcoming the Minister of State and wishing him well with his brief, I point out that with regard to the key issue in terms of focusing on competitiveness and the need to maintain investment in education, we must not apologise for making a special case for education and specifically for those with special needs. We must also have regard to social cohesion and issues such as intercultural harmony, the prevention of racism and so on. All these issues are tied in. I regret very much the speeding up of the rate of the cuts in the allocation of teachers who teach English as an additional language and I do not believe it will have a happy outcome.