Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I again welcome the Minister and commend both her and her team in the Department on developing a detailed roadmap in respect of how to manage the reopening of our schools in September. As for my background, I am an arts graduate in French and history, and I had the opportunity after completing my degree to teach French for a period in secondary schools. I have many friends who work as teachers and principals in the primary and secondary school sectors. Prior to my role in the House, I was also on the board of management of the Roscommon community college and St. Kililan's, New Inn.

This significant investment of €375 million by the Government is testament to the commitment of our parties to ensuring a safe teaching environment for teachers and students this September. Ireland now has a clear plan in the form of the roadmap for the reopening of our schools, which will facilitate the full return to school of more than 1 million students, 4,000 schools and 100,000 staff. These far-reaching measures will give reassurance to parents and students about the safety and importance of education as a fundamental right as classes start again in schools at the end of August. I am also pleased to see there was significant input from many stakeholders, including teaching unions, associations, school leaders and staff.

The commitments that are being given include more than €53 million for 1,080 secondary school posts and there has already been an initial allocation of 600. I, too, listened to the Minister earlier on RTÉ Radio 1 and it was very good to hear about the potential for job-sharing and that the number of teachers will increase. The commitments also include 120 counselling posts, a really innovative measure to help students' well-being in the context of the new ways of teaching that will be employed. This has already been praised internationally, which is great to see. A total of €40 million has been allocated for primary school substitution as teachers cannot attend school if displaying any symptoms. I am pleased to see there are more than 60 supply panels, with at least one in each county.

More than €75 million has been dedicated in respect of infrastructure within schools and €11 million for school buses to help assist in the context of distancing and where the wearing of face masks will be necessary. There is more than €84 million for replacement teaching staff. I am very pleased to see the particular supports for special needs students and I welcome the statement from the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, on special needs and inclusion to the effect that every school will have access to special needs assistants. That also includes additional access to the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, where an additional sum of more than €17 million will be provided to support the well-being of those coping with complex special needs, disadvantage or marginalisation, particularly in this time of stress and anxiety due to Covid-19. Primary schools will have access to minor works grants to reconfigure spaces and this is a doubling of the current minor works scheme. A school with 100 students, for example, will receive roughly €14,000, and the commitment is in place until mid-August to support the reopening.

This is a large undertaking to plan the immediate infrastructure and recruiting resource needs. It will be necessary that all hands are on deck to ensure that our schools are ready in the next few weeks, which will be an added pressure for principals and teachers at our schools. We need to ensure, as the Minister is committed to doing, that we will return to a safe working environment. I listened to the Association of Secondary Teachers, ASTI, president, Ms Deirdre McDonnell, this morning on RTÉ Radio 1. She highlighted the input by unions and associations into the roadmap. It showed the strength of this plan through involving all stakeholders. Teachers have welcomed the fact that curricular reform has been paused but there is concern over the timeframe. I have also had the opportunity to speak to some teaching staff, such as in Scoil an Chroí Naofa in Ballinasloe, the only DEIS band 1 school in County Galway. The feedback they gave to me was that DEIS schools in particular, which deal with more disadvantage and perhaps more complex special needs, will have to rearrange their breakfast clubs and homework clubs. I would be very interested to learn how we will help accommodate such schools. Scoil an Chroí Naofa has been waiting more than 20 years for a new school building. I am working with it currently. It is in the middle of planning with Galway County Council. It is dealing with classroom sizes that are 45 sq. m, whereas the standard configurations provided were for 80 sq. m. I am curious as to how we will manage when classroom sizes are so much smaller.

In the case of such schools, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and psychologists move from one school to another. How will we ensure that pupils have access to these professionals in a safe way, which is needed for their development? When dealing with children with special needs, there is an opportunity for them to mix with mainstream classes. One objective of the Department is the integration into mainstream of children with special needs. We might get some detail on how we will do this, if it is possible to provide at a later stage. These are challenges and I ask the Minister to consider them.

As I outlined, principals, teachers and administrators will need speedy access to the required funds offered by the Department in order to get matters across the line by mid-August and to recruit teaching staff. What additional supports are being put in place at the Department to help principals and teachers to get their classrooms reconfigured and resources recruited? It is a massive administrative project. On the issue of substitute teachers, it is an excellent initiative to have more than 60 supply panels, and additional teachers have been immediately allocated to them. How will that be safely managed? The Minister may have referred to that matter on the radio earlier.

Currently, face masks are not required in schools and each school has its own Covid-19 response plan. What types of regular reviews are being set up to examine cases in primary and secondary schools and public health guidance with the Health Protection Surveillance Centre?Is it necessary to consider a testing protocol in respect of this for when cases are identified?

I very much welcome this large investment to ensure that schools will open safely at the end of August and the start of September. I thank everyone in the education sector - principals, teachers, administrative executives - who will be working at full tilt in the next few weeks. It had already started by this morning. I rang the Department and was told officials were talking to all the people in the schools they were going to get set up. It was really kicking off this morning. How will we ensure we support them to have 4,000 schools ready to welcome students at the end of August? It is no mean feat.

Students will get to meet school friends. They will continue on their exciting path of discovery through education and, as parents have let me know, they have a whole new appreciation for the role of teachers. It has been a difficult and stressful time in recent months. Parents and children have all been affected in how we have managed and behaved in recent months with Covid. I ask that my colleagues, as public representatives even in our debates, instil confidence, hope and a sense of calm in our children going back to school. It is really important for that sense of well-being, which the Minister demonstrated well in the report and the strategy she brought to us today. It is also important that each of us be responsible in how we ensure in our debates that our children will be hopeful and confident going back to school and that it is an enjoyable experience.

I thank the Minister very much and look forward to working closely with her as a party spokesperson on education.