Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Buttimer's request for a debate on the media and broadcasting. That would certainly be timely.

There are two issues I would like to raise with the Leader. The first concerns the leaving certificate. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills is currently looking at the issue of leaving certificate reform. The development of syllabi is ongoing by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. There are many concerns among science teachers and science academics about the development of the syllabus in areas like chemistry, biology, physics and agricultural science by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. These concerns are being expressed by the Irish Science Teachers Association. The concern is that a very vague template is being prepared for each of these subjects in terms of teaching and assessment. This could lead to confusion among teachers about what they are meant to teach and, indeed, to what depth they should teach for success in the leaving certificate. Some of the changes are being proposed in the name of promoting creativity, but the science teachers argue that specifying learning outcomes is all very well but these learning outcomes can apply to any level of teaching on a given subject. They are concerned that when they raise objections the executive committee of the NCCA progresses these matters regardless, which is what appeared to happen in 2014. Rather than get into excessive detail on this, I ask for a debate with the Minister on the NCCA, how it goes about its work of curriculum development, how it deals with the concerns of those experts that it brings on to its committees in the area of science teaching and science academia and whether their concerns are in fact being listened to.

The second issue I would like to raise with the Leader concerns the information surfaced by Deputy Carol Nolan in the Dáil that there have been a total of 94 incidents of adverse events reported to the State Claims Agency with regard to the operation of the new abortion law. It is not clear what was involved in these adverse incidents. Information would be important. I refer, of course, to information that is properly anonymised. We do not know whether these adverse incidents relate to catastrophic situations such as the misdiagnosis that led to the taking of baby Christopher's life by the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, or whether they relate to issues that have adversely impacted on women's health. These issues about abortion concern women's health and, of course, they concern the ongoing contested space about whether it is right to take the life of the unborn. It is clear that we cannot just have the vague indication by the Government that there is to be a three-year review. We need to be getting information and discussing in these Houses issues such as, for example, the implications for the ongoing practice of abortion being provided through telemedicine arising out of Covid. There are many concerns about the dangers associated with that. Above all, there is a need for information and open debate. I ask that the Minister for Health would come to the House to discuss with us what is at the back of these adverse claims, what they tell us about the way abortion law is operating and what changes we can fairly debate in the Houses.