Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister very welcome. This is a technical Bill, but it would be a mistake to think that it is not significant because it is. One of the first things I called for when I was elected was that some of these services would move back to the Department of Education. Having engaged, as a homeschooling mother for ten years, with some of the services in this area of Tusla it always seemed quite strange to me that things to do with education were put under Tusla. That happened in the 2013 Act. When Tusla was formed in 2014 a lot of these things came under the remit of the Minister for children, Deputy O'Gorman. There was a period where there was quite a lot of stakeholder engagement with many parents and young people who were availing of some of the services. There was no ability under legislation to do that through the Department of Education, which again does not make any sense.

Nothing in the Bill changes the fact that parents are the primary educators, regardless of which service they are using. They are legally entitled to home educate. Several of these things are about supporting children and families who want their children to be in school but who are struggling. The entire community is supporting them in their return to school or having an out-of-school experience that is related to the school community.

I welcome the Bill. From speaking to the Minister, I understand it is a tidying up operation. I previously asked for some of the services to be moved back to the Department of Education, and that has already happened. A difficulty was created when legislation was not in place to back that up and the current and future Ministers for Education did not have the powers required in order to be able to do the accounting, oversee stakeholder engagement and report properly on what was happening.

We know that the pandemic has created a different kind of experience for families around education. Having been chair of the Home Education Network, I know a lot of families around the country. There has been a huge rise in the number of families who are home educating. Apart from that, I know instinctively that there has been a rise in the number of people who have been struggling in school and have had difficulties. Children have felt the brunt of the pandemic, and I would like to hear from the Minister in his closing statement what the Department has done in order to address that. These things should be under the remit of the Department of Education because they are matters of education. The Minister has a responsibility, which I know he takes very seriously, for the children who have fallen through the cracks over the past year.

I will not list everything I believe the Government has done. It is quite appropriate for the Minister to outline to Senators what he has done in that regard.

I support the Bill and I hope it has cross-party support. It is something that is already happening and legally could happen through statutory instrument. In order for every child to get what he or she needs, we need to have this Bill in place to ensure that the Minister for Education can do her job in overseeing all of that work.