Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious that Natasha O'Brien is in the Houses of the Oireachtas today. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to her and the other women who have come forward to tell their stories about how badly our criminal justice system is letting down victims of the most shocking violence against women and girls. There may be an appeal, so we cannot say too much but there has to be review now of sentencing. There are also serious questions for the Defence Forces. It is mind-boggling to think that anybody with a conviction, not necessarily with a custodial sentence but with a conviction, continues to serve in the Defence Forces in this country.

I call for a debate with the Minister, Deputy Foley, on the recent publication of the guidelines on the use of school property, especially after school hours. Those of us who take a particular interest in this issue have waited eagerly for these guidelines. I read with great disappointment what we finally got two weeks ago. The document states it is designed to encourage schools to engage with the local community. However, when you read the detail, it does very little of the sort. It maintains the position of the Department of Education, which is effectively to sit on its hands and devolve solely to boards of management all decisions with regard to after hours school use or use of school buildings beyond their remit of education.

There are two issues here. The State spends millions, indeed billions, of euro every year on new school buildings, and yet these school buildings lie empty for almost half the waking day. There is no vision or imagination as to how we use these school buildings on a systematic basis across communities. The second key issue is that we have little or no future-proofing. A new school building costs around €30 million and there is no provision for after-school care, by and large, in the school design. When it does happen it is reliant on the goodwill and progressive vision of the board of management, but that does not apply throughout all schools.

I can give two examples. One is a school which in 2019 started to have after-school provision. Now, because it is at capacity and is a full school building with no space for after-school use, the board of management has to tell parents it can no longer continue with after-school provision in the shape and form it did previously. That is distressing for parents who relied on the school for after-school provision. It is difficult for the board of management as well to have those difficult conversations.

Another school I am engaged with has decided that, because it has been left short by the Department of Education for its cleaning bill, it will hike its monthly licence fee by €2,000, from €3,000 to €5,000, for the pre-school provider and the after-school provider, who have been there for many years.This is a huge issue for the parents, the provider and the school. They are going to lose all that fantastic continuity between the preschool and the primary school.

The key issue is that schools are public buildings built with taxpayers' money. The Department has left school buildings across the country short in areas such as the caretaker allowance, the maintenance allowance, the school bill and the school book scheme which, this year, does not cover school books for those schools that did not previously have a book rental scheme in place. Schools are having to scramble to try to put that money in place and the preschool provider is going to be hiked out and a childcare chain brought in, charging much higher fees to the parents in that school. Rather than stepping back, we have to see the Department of Education actively intervene with these schools to ensure school buildings are used in a public sense, rather than for profit, and that schools are adequately resourced for all their needs in providing education.