Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I second Senator Nash's proposed amendment to the Order of Business regarding the very important legislation he hopes will be taken today.

I wish to raise two issues with the Leader. One is the outrageous move by the Department of Education and Skills to place a cap for some reason on the enrolment of five Educate Together primary schools across the country. I have been contacted by a number of parents and local representatives in New Ross, Tramore, Trim, Castlebar and Tuam, all of whom are perplexed as to why the Department has decided to place a 13 student cap on the enrolment numbers for next September for each of these Educate Together schools. It is quite surprising considering that in the last number of years there was a large roll-out of Educate Together schools across the country under the former Ministers, Ruairí Quinn and Jan O'Sullivan. Plebiscites were held in most parts of the country to find out, for the first time, the type of patronage model that interested most parents and much to the surprise of some, although not to people in the Labour Party, many parents were interested in the multi-denominational model. A number of schools were subsequently established. However, now the schools in New Ross, Tramore, Trim, Castlebar and Tuam are being told they can only take in 13 pupils from September. I wonder if there is some type of institutional bias in the Department against these schools because no other patronage schools are being asked to put a cap on their numbers. I ask the Leader to facilitate a debate in the Seanad with the Minister for Education and Skills on this important issue. A number of parents are quite disturbed by this development.

Second, I wish to raise the Children's Rights Alliance Report Card 2018. To be fair, and I try to be fair in my deliberations here, many of the grades the Children's Rights Alliance has given the Government have improved from last year. That should be acknowledged. However, two issues arise from the report and it would be interesting to invite the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to the House to discuss them. One is child and family homelessness, for which a grade E has been given by the Children's Rights Alliance. There are many grades to show that the Government is clearly delivering, which is commendable, but on the issue of child homelessness it is an E grade for the second year in a row from the Children's Rights Alliance, which is a reputable organisation. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs should be invited to the House to discuss that.

The second issue in the report is general practitioner, GP, care for children. The last Government introduced free GP care for every child in the Republic under six years of age and we expected that it would be extended to every child under 12 years of age within a short period of time. Now the Minister is talking about a flat fee of perhaps €5 or €10 for every visit, which we would flatly oppose.

Perhaps the Leader would respond on those three issues; the roll-out of free GP care for children between six and 12 years of age; the issue of child and family homelessness; and the pertinent issue of the day, the crazy cap that has been placed on enrolment in Educate Together schools in five areas of the country.