I move:—
That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that the total cost of the erection, reconstruction and equipment of national schools should be borne by the State, and that the public health authorities should be responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the school buildings and premises, including repairs, heating, lighting, cleaning and sanitation.
This is not by any means the first time on which the propositions contained in this motion have been publicly advanced, but I feel it is particularly appropriate that they should be put forward now, in view of the attitude taken up by the Minister for Education when replying to Senator Baxter last July on the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill, but much more so because of something which has occurred here in this country within the last few months, and to which I shall have occasion to refer later on in the course of my remarks. In Volume 26, No. 17, Column 1846 of the Seanad Debates, the Minister is reported as follows:—
"With regard to school buildings, the point I should like to emphasise to the Seanad is that our national school system is organised on a parish basis. There is the parish unit and this organisation of primary education is in accordance with the religious sentiments of the Irish people. It has been described even quite recently by an Irish bishop as being not very far from the ideal, so far as Irish Catholic principles are concerned. The State is responsible for the payment of the teachers and it makes generous grants towards the building, improvement, heating and cleaning of the schools, but on the people of the parish, which is the unit of the whole system, devolves the primary duty of providing the funds necessary for the maintenance, repair, heating and cleaning of the schools and towards the cost of reconstruction of existing buildings and the erection of new school buildings when required locally."
In this passage, and indeed all through his speech on that occasion, the Minister spoke as if the present national school system were a homogeneous entity—something that could not be interfered with or altered in any way without doing violence to Catholic principles or to the religious sentiments of the Irish people. I believe I am right in saying that this was the impression created by his speech. It will be my task to show that such an impression is entirely erroneous.
The Catholic Church, not alone in this country but in all countries, has always claimed and insisted on certain prior fundamental rights in the control of education, and it has ever been exceedingly jealous of any interference with these rights. No responsible person or body, in this country at least, will dispute or fail to acknowledge that claim. But we must be certain as to what the claim actually is. In many countries during the latter half of the last century—and indeed, I might say, down to the present day—controversy has raged over the question of religious control of schools and religious teaching in the schools, and there has been much bitterness and much contention as a result. Happily, we in this country, or perhaps I should say in this part of the country, have been spared such controversy. Many things have operated from time to time to cause dissension among our people, but through all our trials and troubles there has always been, among Catholics and Protestants alike, but one opinion on the question of religious education and its place in our educational system. There is unanimous agreement among all our people that religious instruction, in accordance with the religious beliefs of the pupils and their parents, must be given in all primary schools. Education is of the spirit—it has to do with the soul of man, the cultivation of the mind, the gradual drawing out and development of the child's God-given faculties. It concerns itself with the human personality in the wide sense—the proper upbringing of the child and the training of his character as a Christian and a citizen. All true teaching must be animated by that spirit. It is in this spiritual field that the Church claims to have the fullest and most complete authority, and here it will brook no interference from any quarter, State or otherwise.
When we talk of a school, we sometimes have in mind the material building—four walls of bricks and mortar— wherein education is being imparted. But the building and its surroundings are the accidentals and externals—the mere material adjuncts to the school proper. We could have a school in the middle of a desert, in a tent or in an open park, in a ditch or beside a hedge, as we had in our own country in years gone by. We must, therefore, clearly distinguish between what might be called the religious, moral and spiritual side of education and the purely material side—the externals, the buildings in which education is imparted, the administrative machinery, and such like. There is, I assert, no inseparable bond between these two sides, and I hope to show that no such inseparable bond is claimed to exist between them.
Rev. Dr. Corcoran, S.J., the distinguished Professor of Education in the National University, in the course of his minority report as a member of the Vice-Regal Committee on Intermediate Education in 1918 made the following statement:—
"The most essential issue in the Catholic nature of Catholic schools is full Catholic control of the choice of teachers, retention of teachers and removal of teachers."
The Church claims, and none disputes its claim, that in order to ensure that not only religion, but the secular subjects as well, should be taught in the proper way—that all the teaching should be animated by the proper spirit and sentiments—it should have control over the teaching personnel— that it should have the right to select and appoint, and when necessary remove, the teachers. That right has been fully conceded in the case of all primary schools under Catholic management in this country. No responsible person or body, and least of all the teachers themselves, dispute or question that right. Indeed the teachers would be among the first to oppose any attempt to take away that right from the managers. I make that statement very deliberately and with full regard to my position as an official of the Teachers' Organisation of 26 years standing. Addressing a teachers' congress in Belfast on April 22nd, 1930, Most Rev. Dr. Mageean, Lord Bishop of Down and Connor, spoke as follows—
"What I say here about the impossibility of separating in practice the religious from the secular side is true of education in itself; it is not necessarily true in the administration of education. Let me make this point clear by an example.
Questions dealing with the upkeep and repair of the school building, with sanitation, heating, lighting and cleansing of the school could be in the hands of a committee, subject to the education authority. On the other hand, the determination of the religious programme to be taught in the school would fall within the province of the Church authority.
The teacher is partly the concern of the State and partly the concern of the Church; for the addition to imparting knowledge the teacher plays a large part in the religious and moral development of the child.
The situation could be met, I think, by the ecclesiastical authority appointing the teacher, subject to the proviso that the State has the right of insisting that the person appointed should have the proper academic qualifications or the approval of the education authority.
Questions of text-books could be solved in the same way."
Here his Lordship made it clear that he made no claim to the control of such matters as the upkeep and maintenance of school buildings. He did claim a right in the matter of the appointment of the teachers, and of the school programme and school texts—in other words in the religious, moral and spiritual side, as against the purely material side.
I referred a few moments ago to a commission which sat in 1918, of which Dr. Corcoran was a member. In the same year, a commission presided over by the late Lord Killanin examined the position of primary education. One of the greatest Churchmen of our day, the late Cardinal O'Donnell, was a member of that commission. So also was the then secretary of the Catholic Clerical Managers' Association, the late Very Rev. Canon Macken, P.P., of Claremorris, who represented the Catholic managers on the commission. The other Churches were likewise represented. Here is an extract from the unanimous findings of this commission signed by, among others, Cardinal O'Donnell and Canon Macken:
"While we hold that the work of teaching in primary schools in Ireland is a national service, and that the assistance heretofore given from State grants towards the original capital expenditure on the erection of school-houses should be continued, there are, in our opinion, directions in which localities may well be called upon to evince their interest in the success of the State service, by contributing by a local rate towards the expense of primary education.
We therefore propose that it be obligatory on county councils and county boroughs, in conjunction with the Board of National Education, to appoint school committees on the same lines as school attendance committees are at present constituted. Their duties and powers to be as follows:—
(1) The enforcement of school attendance enactments throughout Ireland.
(2) The maintenance, repairs, heating, cleaning, and equipment of national schools unless adequate provision has been otherwise made.
Before expending money in the maintenance, repairs and equipment of non-vested schools, the owners of the buildings should enter into agreements with the school committee as regards the use of the buildings during certain hours and for a certain number of years for primary education purposes, so as to warrant the committee incurring such expenditure.
It should also be optional for such local committees to undertake the following charges:—
(1) The payment of the moiety required from the locality in order to secure the medical and dental treatment of the pupils in the schools, and to secure the provision of meals in necessitous cases. Also the payment of the local moiety towards discharging the annuity on the residence for the principal teacher.
(2) The provision of school books and requisites in necessitous cases.
(3) The provision, where necessary, of plots of land for the purposes of horticultural instruction, and also the provision of sites free of cost to enable managers to erect teachers' residences where not already provided.
The expenses incurred in exercising these powers and fulfilling these duties to be met by a county-at-large or borough rate. In cases of dispute in the distribution of the local rate for any of these purposes the matter should be referred to the Commissioners of National Education for their decision."
These recommendations, I would remind Senators, were made when we had an alien Government here in 1918 or 1919.
I shall quote one further extract to show that in this matter of education the distinction or division between the spiritual and the material side does exist and is, in fact, recognised and provided for by the Church itself. This extract is from the Encyclical Divini Illius Magistri—The Christian Education of Youth, by His Holiness Pope Pius XI, an authority which, in such a matter, is beyond question. The extract I propose to quote is taken from the paragraph headed “Relations Between Church and State.” The first portion of this paragraph deals with the boundaries which limit the respective activities of Church and State and refers to the words of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII on the subject. It points out that some subjects may be the concern of both authorities, though from a different point of view. Then it goes on to say:—
Now the education of youth is precisely one of those matters that belong both to the Church and to the State, "though in different ways," as explained above. "Therefore," continues Leo XIII, "between the two powers there must reign a well ordered harmony. Not without reason may this mutual agreement be compared to the union of body and soul in man. Its nature and extent can only be determined by considering, as we have said, the nature of each of the two powers, and in particular the excellence and nobility of the respective ends. To one is committed directly and specifically the charge of what is helpful in worldly matters; while the other is to concern itself with the things that pertain to Heaven and eternity. Everything, therefore, in human affairs that is in any way sacred, or has reference to the salvation of souls and the worship of God, whether by its nature or by its end, is subject to the jurisdiction and discipline of the Church. Whatever else is comprised in the civil and political order rightly comes under the authority of the State; for Christ commanded us to give to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's."
These extracts and the statements by prominent Churchmen which I have quoted make it quite clear that changes in our primary system which would concern themselves only with such external and material things as school buildings, their upkeep and maintenance—changes which might imply the handing over of such administrative details to local committees and the imposition of a local rate—that any such changes would not be inconsistent with fundamental Catholic principles and would not, as might be gathered from the Minister's speech to which I referred earlier, do violence to Catholic ideals or to the religious sentiments of our people.
I have thought it necessary to dwell at some length on this in order to dispel any misconception that might arise, and to forestall a possible argument that here in this motion we are asking something which, if granted, would be an invasion of the rights and privileges claimed by the Church under what is known as the managerial system. On the contrary, this is a proposal to relieve managers of an obligation with which they find themselves burdened—one which they are not in a position effectively to carry out, because they are not provided with any powers to enable them to carry it out. They are, in fact, asked, and expected, to make bricks without straw.
I come now to the first proposition in this motion, viz., that the total cost of the erection, reconstruction and equipment of schools should be provided from State funds. School building in this country has always been carried on—in fact is still carried on —in a haphazard and desultory fashion. In the early days of the system, many schools were built by private individuals, often by the local landlord, and they remained the private property of the individual who built them. These are known as "non-vested schools". Nowadays the State provides at least two-thirds of the cost of erection, and the school building is vested in local trustees—usually, in the case of Catholic schools in the Bishop of the diocese, his Vicar-General or some person specially appointed by him, and the local parish priest, who is the manager of the school. Let us see what the usual procedure is when it is decided to build a new school. I should say here, of course, that the existing school may be condemned for years before the decision is finally taken to replace it. That is no uncommon experience; there are 300 of them in that category at present. The manager must provide a suitable site. He gets no financial assistance from the State or the local authority to enable him to lease or purchase a site. The site chosen has to satisfy the Board of Works, and if the manager believes the site is suitable and the Board of Works think otherwise a controversy arises that may go on for years.
Let us assume, however, that the question of the site is settled—the manager has somehow or other raised the necessary funds to provide it. The Board of Works will then, in consultation with the Department of Education, make an estimate of the cost of the new building. If the money voted for school building in that particular year is not already allocated—and this often happens—the Department of Education informs the manager that a grant equal to two-thirds of the estimated cost of the building will be made available, provided he is prepared to put up the balance. Let us see what this means.
A school to accommodate 100 pupils would cost, even pre-war, something in the neighbourhood of £2,500 or £3,000. The manager, in addition to providing the site, would in that case be expected to provide £800 or £1,000 as his share of the cost. Now I ask Senators to visualise the ordinary rural parish—with its population of small farmers and agricultural labourers. The manager is expected to raise within his parish this capital sum. He can do so only by way of appeal for voluntary subscriptions. In nine cases out of ten the manager will say he is unable to provide the local contribution, and here begins another battle between the manager and the Department. There is provision in the rules to enable the Minister to grant, in case of necessity, a bigger proportion than two-thirds, and a process of bargaining is set on foot between the manager and the Department, something like what goes on at a local fair —only that this particular haggling may go on for months, or even years, before final agreement is reached.
I do not think I can give a better description of what happens in such cases than was given by Mr. O'Neill, Secretary of the Department of Education, in the course of his evidence before the Committee of Public Accounts in April of this year. He was being examined as to the circumstances in which a school was closed for 16 months, during which reconstruction work was being carried out. I quote from page 16 of the report of the Public Accounts Committee, and Minutes of Evidence which was ordered to be printed in July, 1942. The date on which the evidence was given is April 30th, 1942.
I quote questions 136 and 137:—
"136. Chairman—Can you give any information as to that, Mr. O'Neill?
Mr. O'Neill: It was really more a Board of Works case than ours, because the chief delay arose in the section dealt with by the Board of Works. In the beginning, there was a great deal of haggling over the grant. That occurred in our section of the case, because the manager wanted us to contribute more than we were willing to. We were haggling for about four months. After that, as I have said, it was a question of the Board of Works having difficulties in carrying out the reconstruction. We kept on asking the Board of Works to expedite the business. I can give you a time-table if you wish.
137. Chairman—Is there any staple basis for grants or does every school which comes up for repairs become the subject of a bargain between the Department and the manager as to what proportion of the cost will be defrayed by a grant from the Department?—No. There is a regular scale. We give two-thirds and the manager gives one-third. That is the normal thing that applies in general practice. Where you have a necessitous parish, however, in a congested district in the west particularly, where a manager may have nine or ten schools and a very low rateable valuation, then he asks that we should give more and that he should have to raise less. Sometimes he asks that he should not be required to give anything at all. It is there the haggling comes in. In this case the manager wanted only to give one-sixth. In justice to the taxpayer we did not think that we could give him five-sixths, and so we haggled for a few months and finally came to a bargain."
That is Mr. O'Neill's description of what took place in that particular case. Four months' haggling before the bargain was finally made—that is before the work was even put up for contract! One can only imagine how long it took to decide that the reconstruction was necessary at all before the actual haggling began.
I shall give one other instance to show the delay that can take place before a school which is declared dangerous and injurious to health can be put into a proper state of repair. Some time in 1934, the M.O.H. for County Kildare called attention in his annual report to the condition of one of the schools in his area. Nothing was done about it. Three years later —in 1937—he reported as follows:—
"This building is, generally, in a dilapidated condition. The floor is in disrepair and is a serious danger to children owing to the possibility of accidents. The fireplaces are in disrepair. The walls and floor are dirty. It is, evidently, many years since the walls were distempered. The end wall shows a large area of dampness; the wall over one window is dangerously cracked. There are slates missing from the roof and the exterior plastering is in disrepair. There are signs on the wall which indicate rain coming through roof. The roof of the cloakroom is in a dirty condition. The desks are of the old, obsolete type. The closet walls are dirty and this structure is insufficiently lighted and ventilated. The eave gutters are missing and defective. The surplus water from yard flows into schoolroom. These premises are in such a condition as to be a nuisance or injurious to health. They are, in my opinion, definitely unfit for use as a school in their present insanitary condition. I recommend that this school be not used until it has been put into proper repair and condition."
Then began a series of communications between the manager, the Department of Education, and the Board of Works, and in which even the Kildare Board of Health and the Local Government Department took a hand. Yet, in December, 1941, four years later, the medical officer of health felt compelled to report as follows:—
"I again beg to call attention to....school, which remains in a condition injurious to health. I have repeatedly, in the last few years, reported this matter to the board, but no definite action has been taken to secure a remedy. In a State professing Christian ideals in its Constitution, it is a paradox that children should be compelled by law to attend daily in such hovels which are masquerading as national schools, and which are endangering and undermining the health of the citizens of to-morrow. The neglect to repair and maintain old schools, and failure to provide new ones, is in sharp contrast with the board's action in repairing old cottages and providing new ones despite war conditions. Following this report, an assurance was received that the conditions of this school would be improved, and at time of writing repairs are at last actually in progress—seven years from time of first report on what was among the worst schools in County Kildare."
I need not dwell further on this aspect of the case, but when Senators know the circumlocutory methods and the interminable delays connected with this question of building schools, they will not be surprised to learn that only 334 new schools were erected in the ten-year period, 1932 to 1942.