Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I ask her to make her statement available to us. We did not get copies and that puts us at a slight disadvantage. We listened to the statement and it was all very positive. I thank the Minister for her overview in relation to education.

I jotted down a few things as I listened to the Minister and she might take a note of them and come back to them at some point in the future.me on them. Some years ago, the Department of Education acquired at a very high price, a major site at the top of Newtownpark Avenue, Blackrock, County Dublin, and I would have been told this by a former Minister, Mary Mitchell O'Connor, who represented the Dún Laoghaire constituency. It is on the same avenue as one of the biggest comprehensive schools, Newpark Comprehensive School. That was a rather odd strategic purchase but it was done. I ask the Minister to come back to me when time permits and she has more information on where all that is at. It has been purchased and paid for. It is registered with the Department and clearly there is going to be a plan for it. That is important.

This leads on to my next point. Many people in Dún Laoghaire have raised the issue that they are still, in Februrary, not sure of a secondary school place for their children. It is very worrying for the parents. They are anxious that their children should go to the school that their friends from primary school go to. It is a difficult time for teenagers, particularly if the school is far away, and it is a time of transition. It can be difficult for people who have long-established contacts within that community. They cling to the connection their son or daughter made with the children in primary school they became friends with in fifth class and sixth class. That is important because we live in a community.

I am a great believer in State education. I have always believed that where choice is possible, people should be able to opt to educate their children in their own communities. The best place to be educated is a school closest to one's home in one's own community where lifelong friendships can be built. I still have friends I met in school.

The issue of duplication of applications is clearly a major concern. Parents come to me to say they have no place. I tell them to come back to me with three letters of refusal from schools and that I will then to try to make representations for them. Initially they say they have been refused but when they are asked to produce a letter from a school it appears to be a different story. Sometimes it is that the parents are not getting the school they want. I believe in choices in education. It is really important that we recognise all forms of education and ethoses and religious and non-religious and denomination and non-denomination schools. We should have those choices. We are big enough and tolerant enough in a republic that we can facilitate a broad spectrum of education.

The time has come to have a policy on the issue of duplication of applications in schools. It is not good enough for parents to put their children down for a load of schools with everyone clogging up the system. I say that if people hang on long enough there might be a change. That is unsatisfactory. We need to have a system that is open and transparent. Permitting multiple applications is clearly clogging up the system and does not give us an accurate barometer of what may become available later in the year.

The Minister might give some guidance on the refusal of places when she can do so, so that if a parent contacts our offices and tells us their child has been refused, we can tell them what the next step is. We get representations about this as public representatives. Where do we go? Of course, the State will guarantee people education but might not be at their door. We need some clear guidance and it would be helpful for the Minister and for us as public representatives to know the process when a parent says that it is now Easter but their child has no offer of a secondary school place in September or has been refused.

There is a real need for the expansion of our child psychological services. There is a need for support for children in primary and secondary school. The school is best placed, in many cases, to observe the behaviour of children in the playground or in the classroom. If challenges present themselves at an early age, early intervention can yield good results. We very much see the world from where we have come and our experiences in it. There is real need for an expanded or shared psychological service in clusters, particularly in rural parts of Ireland, where the same connections as in cities do not exist. There is a real need for this. One can see the benefit of early intervention in issues of this nature.

I refer to something very dear to my heart. The Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, put in place the first trial with the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind. It has a visiting school for blind children. These are children who have no eye sockets in their heads. It is really sad. There is no special school for them. There an outreach teacher who drives around Cork. It has been a Cork-based, or a Munster-based, pilot scheme for the last 15 years. How does the State support people who are blind or visually impaired or have other disabilities? The parents cannot even send their children to a centre. It is home visiting and home schooling. I ask the Minister to look at the Cork pilot scheme, which the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind was commissioned to work on, and see how we can progress it.

I thank the teachers in our schools for taking on the challenge of supporting the Ukrainian community. It is vital that their culture and language is respected.