Mary Moran (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State back to the House. I too commend Senator Coghlan on his excellent briefing booklet on physical fitness and education. He will have to run home tonight with all the praise he is getting here today.

We are all aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and physical fitness to improve our well-being and health, both physical and mental, and our hectic life schedules. We all know how beneficial it is and how good we feel after physical exercise, be it swimming, running, playing soccer, playing football, kick-boxing or while collar boxing. Everybody feels better after some kind of fitness activity. It is vital that we ensure we give our young people the best possible opportunities in both primary and secondary school. As has been mentioned, this is where subjects such as SPHE can tie in with the importance of PE and one can feed into the other. Children can learn the importance of a good healthy lifestyle that will make them healthier in the future and help them avoid diseases such as diabetes and heart disease - which, as has already been pointed out, will save the State money in the long run.

As a former secondary school teacher I am all too familiar with the difficult job that PE teachers often have, not through their own fault but because they must deal with situations - I have seen it umpteen times - such as students coming in with notes to excuse them from PE, sometimes genuinely written by parents and sometimes very well forged, with every excuse under the sun as to why the child cannot do PE. I must agree that would never happen in an examination subject. As a teacher of music, I cannot argue that the core subjects of Irish, English and mathematics were seen as the important subjects, whereas music, art and PE were what we called choice subjects. Some liked PE, some liked art and some liked music.

Often I hear of if not the best then intelligent, well-behaved, excellent students claiming they are unable to go to PE class because they must finish their Irish or French. This is all wrong. We should make PE compulsory, as the Senator pointed out. Often the priority of PE in the school curriculum - I can speak for the curriculum at second level - is lesser than for examination subjects. For example, many schools do not offer PE in fifth and sixth year, giving way instead to extra career guidance or religion classes. This sends out the wrong message to parents and students, suggesting PE is not important.

In some schools PE is timetabled haphazardly and this is a significant problem as well. Sometimes PE is timetabled for either the class before what we call "little break" or "big break" or the class after break with lunch time in between. This breaks the whole momentum of the class and, in addition, students may go to the canteen in between the two PE classes for curry chips or a curry butty, often the staple diet. I have no wish to rehearse the issues other Senators have raised.

PE is often regarded as a subject of lesser importance than examination subjects. I admit to times when I sought students for extra classes and often they would attend during their PE class explaining that is was "only PE class". They should have more respect for the subject but it starts at the top. When the schools respect it the teacher respects it and then it will feed down to the pupils. Often, the PE hall is used as the examination hall in schools. Sometimes in cases where examinations are staggered in large schools this can mean that the PE hall is out of action for up to one month at a time and students are sent to the study hall instead. This is totally wrong - because the PE hall is out of action does not mean PE should be stopped altogether.

I meet school-going children and children I have taught previously three or four times per week in my local gymnasium who undertake vigorous exercise regimes but they do not go to PE class in school. This must be tackled. I am unsure what the answer is or whether it is because the facilities are not in place. It would not cost a great deal of money to have some type of exercise regime but I wonder why it is so prevalent. Often I find that students who come to me from PE class are the most energised students.

I thank Senator Coghlan for introducing the motion, it contains many good proposals.