Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Education to the House. I am the education spokesperson in the Seanad but I also cover further and higher education, innovation, research and science. If the Minister will indulge me, I might discuss education from primary level to tertiary level. I am the Senator for students, after all, so I might try to cover a couple of different areas, if that is all right.

I want to refer to government and leadership. I appreciate that the Minister will continue to do everything to keep schools open, but a buzzword flying around once again among people to whom I and, I am sure, the Minister have spoken is "lockdown". People are having conversations about what kinds of lockdowns we are going to have and how long they will be for. Sometimes it feels as if there are leaks of information and slightly coy announcements from some members of the Government. It may or may not be the case. If it is, it is not particularly helpful, particularly when we are talking about everything that can be done in schools to keep them open. Everyone is in agreement that education is important. It is not helpful if certain people in government, although not the Minister, are letting it slip that we may be going in and out of lockdown. It is not helpful to the school community, including students and parents. It is certainly not helpful for us. We are getting the emails about it. I just said I would put that on the record.

Senator Warfield mentioned communication and the question of where the information is coming from. I am in several education and school chats. A message can appear quite late at night stating a circular came around at 8 p.m. I appreciate that people are working under pressure and that staff in the Minister's Department are doing their very best to get things out, but I echo Senator Warfield's comment that communication can sometimes be quite brusque. When this is the case, people feel they are trying to play catch-up in the wake of an instruction the night before.

Senator Dolan referred to antigen tests and their cost. There was a lot of coverage of antigen tests over the past week, and there were comments to the effect that the market has somehow miraculously solved the problem of their cost. That is not a fair way to consider the circumstances. Antigen tests, even if they have gone down in price, are still expensive. There are conversations about schools and children using the tests but parents and teachers have to use them. I ask the Minister to consider whether antigen tests can be made more accessible for people who work within the school community.

I want to reflect on the substitution crisis. I am aware that the Minister referred to this and to using extra hours and releasing students to address it. I want to refer to a letter Labour Party colleague of mine, Mr. Seán Ó hArgáin, wrote to the newspapers the other week. He is a principal. He referred to the strain he is under trying to find substitute teachers. I am in a number of chats and note that the number one topic seems to involve principals saying they are on their knees trying to beg, borrow and steal substitute teachers. I acknowledge that the Minister mentioned in her opening statement many things she is doing to deal with this. I hope they alleviate the burden on some of the principals. The pressure that principals are under in trying to keep their schools open without teachers is made known to me frequently.

I have come across people asking for the number of whoever provides HEPA filters. Perhaps they have not checked their emails properly but an issue arises over communication in this regard. The Minister mentioned that if there are additional needs in schools, access can be had to the filters, but people I have spoken to are just not fully up to date on this.

The Minister said there would be a second set of examinations for those who are unable to sit the main set of leaving certificate examinations due to family bereavement, Covid-19 illness or other categories of serious illness. That is incredibly welcome. People have been talking for a long time about students who, through no fault of their own, sometimes missed out on sitting the leaving certificate examinations. I hope that in the wider conversation on leaving certificate reform, addressing this will be key.

At third level, students all across the country have been calling for a statement on whether in-person examinations will happen. The approach has been quite ad hoc. It is important that safety and Covid-19 should not represent a lottery for students. That goes for primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Particularly in respect of in-person examinations, some institutions, such as UCC and King's Inns, have decided they are going to have none, while others have decided that they will. The Minister might communicate with her fellow education Minister on what will happen in this regard.

We need to pay our student nurses and midwives. It is the Minister for Health, who is in the same party as the Minister for Education, who is in charge of paying them. There are still students working during the Covid-19 crisis. It would be great if the Minister for Education could have a word with the Minister for Health.