Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Senators who have spoken. I welcome the opportunity to address the First Aid and Mental Health in Schools (Initial Teacher Training) Bill 2018 and the First Aid and Mental Health in Schools (Existing Teachers) Bill 2018, which are being debated together on Second Stage.

As a former school principal and a teacher for 31 years, and in my current role, I acknowledge the great work going on in schools and the care in loco parentisteachers, special needs assistants and all staff in a classroom provide. Every adult in a school is there to look after and to help the children. That is what happens and, as Senator Ruane said, the role of the teacher is to empower children. I acknowledge their work and the work done by many boards of management around the country. I also acknowledge teachers and staff in schools who have undertaken first aid courses off their own bat and who, in many instances, have paid for their own first aid training. We will accept the Bills but will table amendments. The Bills will require a money message.

The Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy McHugh, who has been delayed, really wanted to speak today. He acknowledges the positive intentions of the Bills and the desirable outcome that staff in schools and in preschools would be equipped to respond in cases where first aid is required for those children in their care. He also acknowledges that professional training for staff in schools and preschools to build capacity to ensure that good quality first aid is available as and when required is very desirable.However, while the Minister broadly welcomes the ambitions and good intentions of the Bills, he has substantial concerns about their content and presentation. For these reasons, while it is his intention not to oppose the Bills on Second Stage, the Minister wishes to signal that he will propose to deal substantively with these concerns by way of debate and amendment on Committee Stage. Given that the subject matter of the Bills is so closely linked, it is unclear why two separate Bills have been brought forward when on the face of it, it would appear the matters could have been dealt with in one Bill. This point has been mentioned already this evening.

To deal with the first measure, I note that section 3 of the First Aid and Mental Health in Schools (Initial Teacher Training) Bill 2018, provides:

The Minister, having consulted with the Teaching Council, shall require programmes of initial teacher education and training provided by institutions of higher education to incorporate a prescribed level of training in—(a) occupational first aid response, and

(b) mental health first aid.

Sections 4 and 5 provide that boards of management shall only employ members of staff who produce evidence of an up-to-date qualification in "occupational first aid" and "mental health first aid".

Although the Bill's Title refers to "initial teacher education", the requirement to have the training appears to extend to every "member of staff" in a school and preschool, which would potentially include special needs assistants, SNAs, and early childhood education practitioners. It is of note that neither of these groups of employees currently undergoes initial teacher training. I wish to acknowledge the training SNAs and preschool teachers receive. However, in this Bill, they are being lumped in under the rubric of initial teacher training.

The Bill also provides that the requirement regarding initial teacher education, ITE, would commence on 1 January 2019. The provision linking the training to any employment in a school or preschool would come into force on a day set by the Minister not earlier than 1 January 2021. I trust the House appreciates that these requirements are simply not achievable as we have already passed the commencement date.

The First Aid and Mental Health in Schools (Existing Teachers) Bill 2018 provides that all existing members of staff in schools, which includes teachers, SNAs and others, as well as staff of preschools, who are typically early childhood education practitioners, must receive a qualification in occupational first aid and mental health first aid by 1 January 2021, with a refresher every five years thereafter. The Bill imposes a duty on the board of management of a school, the proprietor or another person in charge of a preschool to ensure that staff comply with the requirement for this training. It further requires that the Minister for Education and Skills would prescribe courses of occupational first aid and mental health first aid as being suitable and prescribe the content of a first aid policy and first aid box, the latter in consultation with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. It also requires every school and preschool to develop a first aid policy and keep a suitably equipped first aid box.

Members of this House will be aware that there already exists a body of legislation and policy dealing with the issue of teacher qualifications and training, including initial teacher education as well as ongoing professional development. The Minister appreciates that the Bills seek to acknowledge this to some extent. However, it is vital that the provisions of existing policy and legislation are properly discussed and understood before new measures, which may not be compatible with the objectives of existing legislation, are contemplated. As they stand, the Bills are either fully or partly incompatible with existing legislation, including the Teaching Council legislation; the regulatory framework for health and safety legislation, which is under the remit of the Health and Safety Authority and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation; and the regulatory framework around preschools, which is under the remit of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.

It is clear that existing legislation would need extensive amendment to cater for the proposals outlined in these Bills, if enacted. This would include the Education Act 1998, which sets out the functions of the Minister for Education and Skills, boards of management, teachers and schools, and the Teaching Council Act 2001, which allows for the establishment of the Teaching Council and requires it to set certain standards for teachers. As part of its functions, the Teaching Council oversees the registration of teachers and the accreditation of initial teacher education programmes. If adopted, the First Aid and Mental Health in Schools (Initial Teacher Education) Bill 2018 would encroach on the existing statutory responsibilities of the Teaching Council to set out the standards for initial teacher education by placing a separate direct legislative requirement on ITE providers. The Bill also fail to recognise the fact the Teaching Council has no statutory remit in relation to the registration of those in the preschool sector. Insofar as the proposed legislation requires a statutory body for the registration of early years professionals, further legislation would, therefore, be required.

Members will know that the preschool sector operates under a different framework to the primary and post-primary school system. The responsibility for the preschool sector lies with my colleague, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. As the power to regulate the preschool sector lies with her Department, these Bills, as proposed, would create confusion and conflict between the roles and responsibilities of our respective Departments.

The Minister is also concerned that the Bills are inconsistent with the Department's well-being policies. These policies recognise that schools are centres for teaching and learning and the role of the teacher is preventative and not diagnostic. It appears that the principal import of the Bill for existing teachers is to make courses in occupational and mental health first aid mandatory as part of continuing professional development, CPD, for teachers following qualification. Members will be aware that there is currently no mandatory provision for CPD for existing teachers. CPD is currently undertaken voluntarily by teachers and I am conscious that the teaching profession has continued to respond very positively to the availability of CPD and other professional training. Ongoing consultation with education partners to support the development and implementation of a national framework for continuous professional development will guide any future decisions on the need for regulation in this area.

I will now address the cost. While the issue of cost should never be a barrier to doing the right thing, the Minister is obliged to draw the House's attention to the potential costs of the measures proposed in the Bills. The first and main concern relates to the scale of the estimated expenditure that the provisions contained in both Bills would require. The Department of Education and Skills has conducted an initial costing of the system proposed in the Bills which shows that it would cost between €27 million and €45 million to provide the identified training to existing teachers. This would reach €158 million if a substitution model for these teachers was followed. The financial implications of both Bills would place a substantial burden both on the Department and the Exchequer as a whole and this capacity simply does not exist at present.Furthermore, in the light of these costs, the passage of the Bills would require a money message from the Government.

Aside from financial costs, implementing these Bills would have wider resource issues. The estimated course time required to train all teachers and SNAs in the primary and post-primary sector is three to five days each. This would have a significant negative impact on schools by reducing pupil-teacher contact time for up to five days. Pressures on teacher supply would increase substantially if a substitution model was to be introduced.

Given the nature and extent of changes proposed by these Bills, extensive consultation with relevant stakeholders would be necessary to secure support for the proposed measures. These consultations would necessarily include school management bodies, unions, higher educational institutions, preschool providers and their representatives, health and safety professionals, and psychological services. It would also be necessary to include parents of both preschool and school-aged children in any such consultations.

Given there are also private providers of ITE in the market, it is not clear whether or how they are provided for in these Bills. Given the scale of the proposed changes and the consultation process that would be required, significant lead-in time and notice would also be necessary to allow higher education institutions to prepare for their introduction. This would not be possible in the timeframe envisaged in the Bills as they currently stand.

At the outset, I acknowledged the positive intentions of these Bills. However, any legislation proposed before these Houses should satisfy the test of proportionality, that is, whether a measure has gone beyond what is required to attain a legitimate goal. No prima facieevidence of need has been brought forward to support the proposals in their current format. Specifically, there is no clear rationale requiring each member of staff to have a prescribed level of training in first aid. Indeed, this is not a requirement in the average workplace. To justify such a proposal, evidence would be required demonstrating why it is necessary to have more than one trained staff member available at any one time. As of now, that evidence has not been provided and the proposed measures as they currently stand are arguably disproportionate to the desired goals.

Notwithstanding the significant measures proposed in the Bills, they do not appear to provide any obligation on staff of schools or preschools to use the first aid or mental health first aid training in the course of their duties. Currently, the responsibilities of staff in any organisation, including schools and preschools, in cases where they may be called upon to administer first aid are complex. Detailed consideration of the role and responsibilities of employees would be necessary before legislation is introduced compelling training and professional development for roles and responsibilities they are currently not legally obliged to undertake.

As I outlined earlier, the Minister is not opposing the passage of these two Bills through Second Stage. It is clear that these Bills require extensive amendment, significant stakeholder consultation and extensive changes to existing legislation for them to be viable. Given the current pressures and competing priorities in the Department of Education and Skills and the Exchequer, the financial and wider resource implications of enacting these Bills would also be challenging at this time.