Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil also pays tribute to those who have died. What happened to those young ladies was horrific and our sympathy is extended to their families.

On education and the priority we place on it, I want to discuss investment in education before the next budget is decided. I agree with Senator Ardagh that we need to have the Minister for Education and Skills attend the House in the next few days. We have long prided ourselves on our terrific education system. That is great. There are great schools, principals, teachers and students. We are placing huge pressure on parents, however, to keep the lights on in some schools. It is just not good enough when they are paying tax to provide these utilities.

I have been in contact with the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association and individual primary school principals following the slashing of €100 million in capitation grants from education budgets over a number of years. Capitation grants are paid to voluntary primary and secondary schools based on the number of recognised pupils enrolled. While the grant is supposed to cover the overall cost of running schools, it fails to meet these. Although it costs as much to run a large primary school as to run a secondary school, the rate of pay for the latter is almost three times the rate for the former. Primary schools are losing out. Unless parents reach deep into their pockets, some schools will be at a disadvantage. While some schools are lucky to have amazing fundraising committees, the parents at others are under severe stress because they cannot pay their voluntary contribution. They simply cannot afford it. While we spin the idea of free education, any parent will say that it is far from free.

I join principals in calling for the restoration of the grant to the pre-cut level of €200 per annum per child. We must invest more in the schools we have now. We must complete the school building projects we have started and fulfil the promises we have made before announcing new schools and, as usual, blaming the guys from before. Our children deserve our full commitment to giving them all the best chance, not just those with wealthy parents or machine-like fundraising committees. Grants for primary schools can certainly be increased if we see them as a necessity. We all look at them that way, or at least those of us who have put our children through the Irish school system. If the grants were restored, we could then contribute for nice things instead of paying for heat, light and paper as is happening now.

I call on the Minister to come to the House to address this very serious issue. Children are returning to school in September and their parents are panicking about what they can pay. They just do not have the money.