[Deputy Ruairí Quinn   ]
In our primary schools, among the many skills that our children acquire, the most important are that they learn to write and to read. In secondary school, children read to learn so as to successfully sit the junior certificate and leaving certificate and, hopefully, travel on to college. Today, however, 19% drop out of school after they reach 15 years of age. Most, but not all, simply do so because they cannot read. The Minister of State, Deputy Seán Haughey, has reluctantly admitted to me in the Dáil that as many as 500,000 of our citizens are functionally illiterate and that number is growing. Budget 2009 will accelerate that growth. Dropouts drop into unemployment, then long-term unemployment or possibly even worse — self abuse, drug addiction or crime, and perhaps all three. Ask the governor of Mountjoy Prison. The impact of this budget on our education system is simply disastrous. At a time of need for more investment, we are worsening a key measure in our educational system, the pupil-teacher ratio. As a consequence, we are now heading to the bottom of the OECD education league. The Celtic tiger, under the management of Fianna Fáil and the Greens, is facing relegation. In so far as we can measure the figures, I estimate that up to 1.5 million people will be directly affected by the measures contained in this pernicious budget, not once but frequently, with disastrous results. Children, students, parents and even grandparents will all be touched, damaged and wounded by these measures. The Minister, Deputy Batt O’Keeffe, said the cutbacks would only last for two years. That is wrong. For some, they will be a life sentence. Deputies: Hear, hear. Deputy Ruairí Quinn: The Minister, Ministers of State, members of Fianna Fáil and, God love them, the Green Party—— Deputy Michael Ring: The yellow party. Deputy Ruairí Quinn: Labour is not trying to score political points, nor are we trying to bring down the Government in this motion. We simply want to change that element of the budget that affects education. We share the views expressed by the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Education and Science, Deputy Paul Gogarty of the Green Party, who said recently, and which might have been in the letter received by the Minister in Beijing or Shanghai: I do not have to repeat what I have said about education being a building block for future prosperity and social cohesion and the collective failure of the body politic — Government and Opposition — to give real commitments to education so that we may reap the real rewards, albeit in some cases beyond the narrow five year electoral cycle. Funding education pays back in so many ways. And making cuts in the wrong place can cause irreparable damage.
If ever cuts were made in the wrong place, these are them and yes, they will cause irreparable damage. The Labour Party and, I believe, the Opposition and Government backbenchers, many of whom have expertise and experience in primary education, are working together to try to secure our future and defend our children. Ireland is still a rich country but it is in economic difficulties. Together we can overcome these difficulties by creative thinking, hard work and inspired political leadership. We have done so previously. I ask the Government not to use our children’s future to copperfasten its deeply flawed budget. It is time for Ministers and Deputies in Fianna Fáil and the Green Party to go back to the drawing board. An Ceann Comhairle: I must remind those in the Gallery that applause is not allowed. Deputy Liz McManus: Last week, pensioners and students stood in their thousands outside the gates of this Parliament. Tonight parents and teachers are standing in the cold to defend the thousands of children throughout the country who are under attack. A budget that promised to protect the vulnerable has turned into a blunderbuss directed towards the young and the elderly. It is no wonder that the anger is palpable in the avalanche of e-mails and telephone calls we have received. I want to give voice to this anger and I can only do so by putting on the record some fragments of the views I received from schools in County Wicklow. One school states: The increase in the student teacher ratio means we lose one to two teachers. The withdrawal of paid substitution will lead to total chaos in our school from January onwards.
A teacher asks: I have been sick only twice in my entire teaching career. Is it seriously being proposed that a sick teacher gets out of bed, attends the doctor and informs their principal well before 8.30 a.m. so the principal has time to arrange a substitute? Get real.
Another communication states; Our school is grossly overcrowded due to the expansion of Enniskerry and we have been waiting patiently for a promised extension. To compound matters class sizes are being increased.
A teacher of home economics writes; My school will suffer hugely. We will lose teachers, have larger classes and reduced subject choice. Field trips and sports will be cancelled. The grant for my main subject is to be abolished. Where is the money to come from?
Another teacher referring to foreign nationals in her school states, “these children will find themselves lost in already over populated classrooms, making integration virtually impossible”. A parent states; My daughter is in fifth year. She will not be able to continue doing chemistry next year. How on earth does the Government expect her to change subjects during her leaving cert course?
The worst and most telling is a report of a school that had its refurbishment stalled long before the budget with little hope now after it: Our main concerns are: A boiler that is 41 years old and a health and safety risk so there is no heating as a result; regular sewage and water discharge into the boiler room; no fire alarm system; no fire escape; no emergency lighting; no fire safety certificates on any of the buildings; toilets are completely unsanitary; no hot water services; and evidence of vermin at the rear of the building.
These comments are only a fraction of the feedback I have received. These education cutbacks are shortsighted, unfair and unworkable. They are being driven by a Fianna Fáil Party which introduced free secondary education when times were rough and a Green Party which gave us lectures on education when times were easy. Many people voted for these parties on the promise that class sizes would fall and education supports would improve. Instead of keeping faith with the people, their children are being asked to pay a terrible price for Government incompetence and extravagance. Deputy Seán Sherlock: Every time I walk into this Chamber, I pass a statue of Thomas Davis, a fellow Mallow man famous for the quote, “educate that you may be free”. The Government, by its actions in recent weeks, has sought to curb these freedoms. When Davis spoke of freedom, he may have spoken in the context of political liberation but he also spoke in the context of the freedom of ideas, thought and consciousness. If we are to educate our children in this nation in the context that Davis spoke about we must give them all the tools we can. The Government, by its actions last week, sought to limit those freedoms and limit the giving of those tools to those children and it should be ashamed of its actions. When I look across the benches of this House I see certain Members of the Green Party playing the Tadhg an dá thaobh and running with the hare and hunting with the hound. I say to them that if they are true to their political conscience and creed they will vote with the Labour Party on this motion and vote for the children of the nation and for the proper education policy that we wish to see in this land. In speaking to this motion I speak for the schools in my constituency. I speak for the children of Ballyhooley national school and the people in Carrigtwohill, Fermoy, the Mercy national school in Cobh, Midleton College and Gaelscoil Mhainistir na Corann. These are among many who made representations to me about the swingeing cutbacks that will be implemented and the adverse effects they will have on the day to day operations of their schools. It must be admitted that great strides have been made in many aspects of education during the past ten years, although not at a pace we would wish to see. However, it is wrong for any Government to roll back those achievements in one fell swoop and send us headlong back to where we were in the 1980s. This is not the mark of a nation making progress. I urge the Government to think hard about its actions. If we are going to flourish as a nation we must look to future generations. The way we can flourish, socially and economically, is by ensuring every child bar none has the best chance in life he or she can have and having an education system that is world class. Anything else is not what we want. This motion is reasonable. It speaks to the genuine fears the people have about the way they see the education system going. The people beyond these walls, the people of this land, who have shouted loudly, and thank God for their voices, do not want to see their children treated this way nor should the Legislature treat their children this way. We want to give them a fair chance and a fair opportunity. This is what we seek through this motion. On Friday, as I walked down the main street of Mallow I was approached by transition year students from St. Mary’s secondary school. They flocked around me to tell me they will not be able to carry out many of the projects and aspirations they have for their transition year because of the cuts. They asked me to let their voices be heard in Dáil Éireann when next I spoke on the subject. I speak for those girls and for the aspirations they have. I speak for the aspirations I had when I was their age and for the educational opportunities I had which were limited because of the times I grew up in during the 1980s. Do not send the education system back to the 1980s. Let us think forward and consider the investment that can be made now and the payoffs in the long run as a result. Deputy Joanna Tuffy: In putting down this motion, the Labour Party is defending progress made in the education system such as the reduction of class sizes, tackling educational disadvantage and getting more students to stay in school and go on to college. Initiatives that have contributed to this progress have been generated across the political spectrum. Thanks must be paid to teachers, students and parents for their part in this regard. Much of the progress has been the result of initiatives introduced by the former Member, Niamh Bhreathnach, when she was the Labour Party’s Minister for Education. She published the first and only White Paper on education, charting its future direction. She introduced programmes to tackle educational disadvantage including the leaving certificate applied, Breaking the Cycle and the Early Start programmes while expanding the transition year programme and abolishing third level fees. The progress that followed included increased participation by school leavers in third level, including those from the lower socio-economic groups. Clondalkin, in my Dublin Mid-West constituency, was one of the postal districts analysed by the Higher Education Authority for its report on who goes to college. Clondalkin’s participation rates in third level increased from 12.7% in 1998 to 22.8% in 2004. More needs to be done but progress has been made. The same report found that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds stayed on in school, thanks to the very programmes introduced by Niamh Bhreathnach, in particular the leaving certificate applied programme. In 2004, the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Mary Hanafin, commissioned a report on the transition year which assessed its success. It found that students who took the transition year did better in the leaving certificate and were more likely to go to college. One problem highlighted, however, was those schools which carry the transition programme need proper funding for the programmes to be successful. I have seen the progress in education in Dublin Mid-West at first hand. I am sure my constituency colleagues, the Minister of State, Deputy John Curran, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, and Deputy Paul Gogarty, the chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science, have also seen them. Last week I met with students from Collinstown Park community college, some of whom are in the Visitors Gallery tonight, who are here to defend the progress made in their school. They told me how valuable programmes such as the leaving certificate applied, the leaving certificate vocational, the transition year and the junior certificate programme were to them. One leaving certificate applied student told me he did not think he would be still at school but for the programme. A leaving certificate vocational programme student told me he hoped the programme would provide him with the opportunity to go on to third level as it provides gateway subjects. Transition year students told me how the programme was an opportunity for them to mature and make better decisions about their future studies and careers. Collinstown Park community college sends many more students to third level, into jobs and apprenticeships than it did a decade ago. This is mirrored in all the other schools throughout the Dublin Mid-West constituency in Lucan and Clondalkin. Funding for these programmes will be cut and schools in Dublin Mid-West will lose tens of thousands of euro. Many of the schools will lose two or three teachers. What will these cuts mean for individuals? The cuts will mean individuals will drop out of school. The doubling of the third level registration fee will force many others to drop out of college. Individuals who would have stayed on to participate in properly funded junior certificate support programmes and vocational leaving certificate programmes will be in danger of dropping out of school. Some schools may cease to offer the transition year because it will be too costly to run. As it was, many schools could not offer the programme because it was too costly to run properly. There will be larger class sizes, Travellers will drop out and some schools will have to cut less popular subjects, such as physics, because they will not have the teachers to provide them. Children who need language support will lose out, as will their class mates. A local school in my constituency has informed me it will lose three foreign national TEFL teachers because of the new cap. Students will perform poorly because of larger classes and other cuts, resulting in their career and further study options being diminished. They will be faced by all of the cuts. Disadvantaged schools and those on the threshold will be hit hardest by these cuts. They will be affected by larger class sizes, restrictions on substitution teachers and cuts in various programmes, such as the leaving certificate applied and vocational options and transition year. Many of these schools are in Dublin Mid-West, a constituency represented by the Green Party’s Deputy Paul Gogarty, chairman of the Oireachtas education committee. These cuts are a mistake. We should be investing in education and building on progress. We must ensure that through investing in education we build our economy again. I have already argued progress can be made in all social areas during harder economic times. There are examples in history where governments in hard economic times invested in education, social welfare, health and housing. Poland, which is much poorer than Ireland, is investing more in education. Ireland will lose out in economic competitiveness in the future to such countries. The purpose of being in government is to make progress on the issues one cares most about. The Green Party, and in particular Deputy Paul Gogarty, made education one of these issues. With these cuts, the progress made in the education system in disadvantaged areas such as Dublin Mid-West, represented by Deputy Gogarty, will be reversed. The Green Party and the Government is on the wrong side of progress in education. Deputy Joe Costello: The Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, made the amazing call for patriotism after his budget speech, the most savage and swingeing budget ever seen in the House. That call was answered very well by 15,000 senior citizens last week. It has been answered again by thousands outside the House tonight. That is the real call to patriotism, not that of the Minister for Finance. With these cuts in education, up to 2,000 teacher jobs will be lost and the pupil-teacher ratio will increase. Already there are 40,000 pupils in classes over 30. What will the figure be after these cuts? Ireland was the second last of all European countries in the pupil-teacher ratio tables; now it is the last. Is that a proud record to have at the end of the Celtic tiger? There will be cuts in grants for disadvantaged schools, transition year and extra curricular activities. The library grant of €2.1 million and the free book scheme will be abolished. These cuts are outrageous. If a teacher falls ill or is away on school activities, there can be no substitution because it has been cut back by the Minister. Pupils will lose out. Hard-won gains by parents, boards of management and the teacher unions have been swept away with one hatchet blow by the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O’Keeffe, without any consideration for industrial relations. That is not the way to do business. Young students who are expecting to get a better education with the disadvantaged and special education grants will now not have that opportunity. Deputy Paul Gogarty, the Green Party’s spokesperson on education, said last week in the House that he could not stand over some of the cutbacks in the budget. Tomorrow, he will have the opportunity to show his patriotism by walking with the Labour Party through the lobbies. Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin: Sinn Féin supports the Labour Party motion before the House tonight. Despite promising that education would be protected from front-line cuts this Government has introduced dozens of cuts that will have a devastating impact on children, teachers and parents. Is léir anois go bhfuair ár gcóras oideachais an buille is mó agus is uafásaí on mbuiséid mífhreagrach seo. Níl grúpa ar bith slán agus mar is gnáth is iad an dream leochaileach atá thíos leis de bharr mí-iompar an Rialtais Fhianna Fáil-Comhaontas Glas. It is now clear that education has been one of the sectors worst hit by this callous and irresponsible budget. No stone has been left unturned and as usual it is the most vulnerable in society who are paying the price for the utter incompetence of this Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition. Primary school funding has seen an attack like no other with increases in class sizes, caps on language support teachers at two per school, abolition of equipment and resource grants, cuts to the school buildings project and deferral of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act. Our secondary schools have been hit with cuts in support for pupils from disadvantaged areas, cuts in investment in information technology, increases in school transport costs, abolition of grants towards the junior certificate schools programme, leaving certificate applied and transition year programmes to name but a few. Attacks on the education sector have also extended as far as third level with an increase in the college registration fee from €900 to €1,500, no provision for increases in student maintenance grants, deferral of planned 2009 increases in medical education places and cuts in adult education grants. It is quite clear that the Government has not taken any measures to ease the crisis in education and instead has set about a course of reckless cuts which look set to cripple the entire sector. Yesterday I had to create a new file on my computer because of the sheer volume of emails that I have received from frantic parents, teachers and students who have reached the end of their tether and are being blatantly ignored by the Government elected to serve them. One concerned teacher outlined the detrimental effect that the proposed cutbacks will have on her own school. She wrote: Every class in our school will be more crowded next year. We will lose one language support teacher, which means less help for every child. From 1st January there will be no substitute cover for teachers on uncertified sick leave — the children in these classes will be divided amongst other, already overcrowded classrooms. All equipment and grants for support teachers working with special needs children are abolished. Our library book grant is gone. The extra capitation provided for traveller children is gone. The school book grant for needy families is gone.
This is just one example of how the ill-advised cuts foisted upon us by the Government will affect our children. All sides recognise the extremely important role that the education system plays in shaping our society, however in overall terms Ireland ranks 30th out of the 34 countries studied in the Education at a Glance Report 2008 in terms of education expenditure as a percentage of GDP. The same report shows us that increases in spending in this State have been insufficient to match rapidly rising student numbers, most notably in tertiary education. Despite Government claims that it has high ambitions for education provision and that it sees investment in education at all levels as highly important to economic success, these figures show that they shamefully failed to invest in any strategic and meaningful manner. The programme for Government agreed between the coalition partners gave commitments to decrease the pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools. Everyone knew that the Government had moved away from this commitment; however nobody could have predicted the decision to completely abandon it and increase the class sizes from 27 to 28 resulting in many job losses and detrimental effects on the quality of education. Our classrooms are already overcrowded; these measures will make them the largest in Europe. The current primary school curriculum, with its emphasis on group work and differentiation to suit different learning styles and abilities, cannot be delivered in classes of more than 30. The measures in the budget will result in many classes larger than this. It will dramatically affect the ability of the system to address learning difficulties and will affect future literacy levels, and levels of maths, science and other subjects that we all accept are critical objectives for the future of our society. With such increases in class sizes, schools are full to bursting point with little hope of receiving grant aid for use in building extensions or repairing existing buildings. There are more than 1,400 schools on the school building programme yet the Government has slashed the funding for primary school building. That is a fact, make no mistake about it. No head-shaking will erase that fact from the record. It is completely unacceptable that our children are to continue being taught in deplorable accommodation and conditions throughout the State without any indication of when proper school buildings will be provided. At present the Department of Education and Science, under the leadership of the Minister, Deputy Batt O’Keeffe, spends €35.5 million per annum on prefabricated buildings. That is a shameful fact. This is money down the drain which could be reinvested in a proper school building programme. The current downturn in the domestic building sector provides an opportunity to address historic underfunding of school buildings in a way that will provide real value for money into the future. Sinn Féin has been making the call to drastically reduce class sizes for several years because we believe the positive benefits of smaller classes make them an absolute necessity and more conducive to teaching and learning. Classes of 20 pupils or fewer are internationally accepted as best practice. We call on the Government to live up to its commitment in the programme for Government with a reduction in the primary school staffing schedule of one pupil per teacher in the school for the school year 2009-10. Sinn Féin has been calling for significant investment in education as part of a long-term economic strategy to build the knowledge based economy that we talk so much about. If we have to borrow money for capital investment then so be it. We should be spending it now where it will really make a difference. The future of our children depends on it. These cutbacks only succeed in hurting those who are most vulnerable and those who are key to the strategic growth of our economy. They are short-sighted and counterproductive, show evidence of a lack understanding of the realities of schools and will damage the educational outcomes of hundreds and, likely, thousands of children. Cutbacks cannot be justified especially, as I must emphasise, when the necessary funds can be raised elsewhere. Under massive public pressure the Government has been forced into a significant climbdown on medical cards for the over 70s. They must now be forced to a climbdown on the savage cutbacks on education. I call on all Deputies of all parties and none in this House to support the Labour Party motion and call again on the Government to listen to the people including, as I have just come in a few moments after the start of this debate, the some 20,000 people estimated to be standing outside in the pouring rain and the cold — teachers and parents together — making a demand on the Minister and the Government to reverse these disgraceful cuts in education. As a messenger of the people here in this Chamber tonight, I re-echo their voice. Minister for Education and Science (Deputy Batt O’Keeffe): I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:
“—recognises, given the difficult economic circumstances, the necessity to stabilise the public finances and that taking difficult expenditure decisions and choices at this time is essential in order to ensure that public services, including education, can be sustained and improved in the long run;
—notes that the expenditure control measures in the education sector must be considered in the context of the Government’s significant investment in education which has increased spending by over 300% since 1997, which has provided for significant improvements in resources and infrastructure across the sector including:
—15,000 extra teachers working in our primary and post-primary schools;
—the targeting of additional supports and resources for children with special education needs with over 19,000 teachers and special needs assistants now working with these children in our schools;
—the targeting of additional supports and funding to schools in the most disadvantaged areas under the Department’s DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) Action Plan;
—the significant capital expenditure of over €586 million this year alone for the school building programme compared to just €92 million in 1997;
—notes the longstanding role of partnership in education and the Government commitment to continuing to work constructively with the partners to build on past achievements and improve educational outcomes for all our students;
—acknowledges that the education budget for 2009 shows a 3.2% increase on 2008, despite serious pressures on public finances and major challenges to our economic and social well being; and
—recognises that these expenditure control measures, while necessary in the current circumstances, will be considered further by Government, in the context of prevailing economic circumstances, at the earliest possible opportunity.”
I wish to share my time with Deputy Seán Fleming. I welcome this opportunity to contribute to the debate this evening on the level of provision made for education in the Estimates and the implications of that provision for maintaining the level of services in the education system. Before I comment on some of the outlandish claims made this evening, and the scaremongering that has gone on in the past two weeks about the claimed impact on schools and children, I want to first go back to one basic premise as the starting point for any reasonable or rational discussion on this issue. We must accept that the dramatic changes in world economic circumstances, changes that are challenging Governments the world over, require decisive action. Or are we to pretend, as some seem intent on doing, that somehow here in Ireland we can carry on regardless? The budget was about striking a balance between setting an appropriate level of public expenditure, making measured changes to taxation and setting an appropriate level of borrowing. It is simplistic and dangerous to pretend that expenditure on public services could be allowed to grow as though domestic and international economic conditions were as healthy as they were in recent years. Those on the benches opposite are being outrageous with the people when they offer—— Deputy Ruairí Quinn: It is the Minister who is being outrageous. Deputy Batt O’Keeffe: ——solutions that enable them to avoid putting forward difficult options for keeping expenditure under control. Deputy Emmet Stagg: Deputy Gogarty gave them. Deputy Batt O’Keeffe: We have heard suggestions that there are easy alternative taxation measures that can somehow solve all these difficulties. This is populist nonsense. Let us remind ourselves that in the mid-1980s we followed the route of high taxation and significant borrowing, and we had difficulty recovering from that folly. We also should remind ourselves that it was by pitching the burden of taxation at an appropriate level that we made Ireland attractive for foreign direct investment and enabled private enterprise to flourish. Let us be clear about this. Deputy Michael D. Higgins: Yes, let us. Deputy Batt O’Keeffe: In order to maintain existing jobs—— Deputy Emmet Stagg: Fianna Fáil’s buddies flourished with the tax breaks. Deputy Batt O’Keeffe: ——and create replacement jobs for any that are lost, we cannot discourage private investment by taxing it out of existence—— |