Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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211. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will initiate the process to put the Dublin/Monaghan bombings history into the history syllabus. [40164/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Framework for Junior Cycle (2015) provides the underpinning for the Junior Cycle. The Framework gives students the opportunity to develop a wide range of knowledge and skills – to equip them for further learning, for work, for responsible and active citizenship, and for healthy living. The Junior Cycle has been developed and implemented over several years, with the final phase of new subject specifications having been introduced to schools from September 2019. The Junior Cycle subject specification for History was developed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) and introduced from September 2018.

When schools in Ireland implement the Framework for Junior Cycle, they have the autonomy and flexibility to design programmes within the parameters of the framework, mindful in particular of the needs of their students and their teaching resources. This allows decisions on what is offered within these programmes to be at the discretion of the school, and students to have as broad a range of options to choose from as possible.

In the Framework for Junior Cycle, all schools are expected to provide opportunities for students to achieve 24 statements of learning over the period of Junior Cycle. These statements include valuing local, national and international heritage and understanding the importance of the relationship between past and current events, the forces that drive change, and understanding the origins and impacts of social, economic and environmental aspects of the world around them.

The current Leaving Certificate established History syllabus has a strand for Later Modern Irish History and this strand contains Topic 5 “Politics and society in Northern Ireland, 1949-1993”. Though specific events are not mentioned in the syllabus outside of a small selection of case studies, this Topic specifically covers the study of the Troubles and “Republican and Loyalist terrorism”, which allows teacher discretion as to what events to cover.

You may be aware that in March 2022, I announced an ambitious programme of Senior Cycle Redevelopment that delivers “equity and excellence for all” and will empower students to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This includes the development of new subjects and revised curricula for all existing subjects, which will be informed by extensive consultation in a co-creation process.

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has published the schedule of revisions to subjects, which provides a clear pathway for the revision of all Leaving Certificate subjects and modules in five annual tranches from 2025 to 2029, available at the following link: Schedule of senior cycle subjects for redevelopment... (ncca.ie)

You may wish to include your observations during consultation on the redevelopment of the Senior Cycle History specification, to be introduced in schools in the 2027/28 school year. All consultations will be accessed via the NCCA’s ‘Have your say’ on their website