Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a direct question for the Minister. Given that the Government knew about the errors from Polymetrika up to a week before it let students and parents know about them, will she place on the record of this House a cast-iron guarantee that there is absolutely nothing else that we are unaware of? There are also concerns that some pupils have been told that their personal data may have been passed outside of the State and the European Union. Can the Minister confirm whether her Department is investigating any potential breach of the general data protection regulation, GDPR, in this case?

We must also not forget that there will be students sitting the leaving certificate next month and I wish them well. Will there be a standardisation process applied to the marking of the small group sitting the leaving certificate in November? If this is the case, will the details of the standardisation process be released given that it will be an atypical cohort unlikely to fit with the patterns of an ordinary summer leaving certificate?

We are also aware of the massive effort of principals and teachers over the summer months to get school buildings ready for the return of pupils. However, school secretaries played a huge role in dealing with the extra administrative burden which involved contact with the Department and ensuring that parents were kept up to date. Even before the pandemic struck, a huge cohort of school secretaries and caretakers were performing vital work while in precarious, underpaid employment arrangements. For years many school secretaries have faced unequal pay as well as poor conditions. Many are paid as little as €12,000 per annum and have no occupational pension, entitlement to sick leave and no incremental pay increases. I think school secretaries felt they were close to a resolution after the formation of the Government given that two of the Government parties stated in their manifestoes that they were determined to see this issue resolved. This being the case, will the Government parties still make good on their pre-election promises? We are 100 days into the Government and last Thursday the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, hearings on a final resolution ended in failure. The feeling among Fórsa, which is representing the secretaries, is that the Government did not enter those talks with any intention of finding a resolution. Now the affected school secretaries are planning strike action to begin on 23 October and to continue through the month and into November. What immediate steps will the Minister make to resolve this?

The pandemic must not get in the way of talking publicly about key issues facing the education system. In The Irish Times of Saturday, 23 October, Ms Una Mullaly reported that a student union welfare officer at UCD received some 350 disclosures of harassment and assault, most of which took place in one academic year.It is imperative that we provide future generations with an understanding of the importance of consent, the development of relationships, safe use of the Internet and a healthy and positive attitude towards sexuality.

In December, it will be one year since the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment released its report on a review of relationships and sexuality education. In the context of that report, students were unanimous about the importance of relationship and sexuality education. I want to read a quote from the report into the record of the House. It is about students' perspectives of relationships and sexuality education, RSE. The report states:

There is unanimous agreement among students about the importance of RSE. While students frequently cite friends and the internet as sources of information about relationships and sexuality, they were aware of the shortcomings of these sources. They want schools to provide comprehensive, relevant and age-appropriate RSE throughout all stages of education. Students have a sense that this is hindered by RSE’s low status and low priority in schools. They express frustration that they are not receiving comprehensive RSE and that their needs are not being met. There is a strong perception among students that provision of RSE is uneven both within and between schools which means that students cannot be guaranteed the same quality of experience in RSE as they can expect in other subjects.

RSE is a contested topic. There are those who believe that I have no right to talk about RSE because I do not have children. I have news for those people: I was a kid and the RSE curriculum let me and my friends down. Queers and LGBT people had to fight for ourselves, not just to live privately, because that is rubbish, but to fight for our right to live openly and free in public.

In the context of the report from which I just quoted, students also frequently mentioned the lack of opportunities to learn about sexual orientation within RSE. The report does not recommend changes to the ethos opt-out rule which allows schools provide RSE, having regard to the characteristic spirit of the school. I would like to know where the newly-appointed Minister stands on the issue. Does she agree with the report from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment or does she agree with the most recent education committee which recommended that the Education Act be reviewed so that ethos can no longer be used as a barrier to the effective teaching of relationship and sexuality education? I put the House on notice that I will be raising this issue every time we have a debate on education.