Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for Education and Skills for taking the time to be here in person. In another circumstance, I would picture the many crushing disappointments of yesterday's budget announcement but I will save that for another time and just speak about one issue involving Gaeltacht courses that primary teachers in training are expected to attend. I raise the issue because of a letter Deputy Jan O'Sullivan received from a constituent and passed on to me. I will give the Minister a flavour of what the student, who I will not name, was saying.

The student mentioned the cost of mandatory Gaeltacht courses incurred by primary school teachers and said that they sought Deputy O'Sullivan's support for a reinstatement of Government support for these courses in budget 2018. The student wrote that since 2012, due to cutbacks, students have had to pay for attending two courses in the Gaeltacht, each of two weeks' duration. The student wrote that although she believed it was necessary for students to attend these courses, the cost is around €1,400 per student, which she believed was too much for students to bear. She wrote that this does not include transport costs and living expenses. The student also makes the case that while they are two weeks away from home, teachers are missing out on the part-time job income they get during that time. She wrote that up until 2012, the cost of these courses was subsidised by the Government and that for an average student to save for one Gaeltacht placement now, they must work two eight-hour shifts every weekend for ten weeks and save all earnings.As a result they have no money left to pay for living expenses each week. The student asked that the matter be brought to the attention of the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Richard Bruton, and requested that in budget 2018 he reinstate the subsidies for these courses, which would help to alleviate the burden of these expenses on students.

The Minister will probably elaborate on what has been done in budget 2018 to deal with this issue; however, I wish to make a further point. I think the USI also called in its pre-budget submission for a restoration of the grants for student teachers attending mandatory Gaeltacht courses. Nobody is suggesting the courses should be stopped in any way as they are very important for student teachers in brushing up on their Irish language competence. I was involved with the Marino Institute of Education in setting up a local initiative where students attending second level DEIS schools with an interest in becoming primary schoolteachers did grinds and received tuition after school in order to attain the standard required. I would be worried if disadvantaged students involved in teacher training had to fork out a significant amount of money at their own expense to go to the Gaeltacht. Now that we are in a better position in terms of the economic projections and that we have more money at our disposal, what the individual student and the USI are calling for is an opportunity to go back to where we were in 2012 for students attending Gaeltacht courses which I attended as a trainee primary schoolteacher and for the courses to be subsidised. If that has not happened in the budget, rather than turning it into a party-political point-scoring exercise, will the Minister examine the issue and restore the support in the coming year?