Vol. 191 No. 13
I move:
That it is expedient to authorise such payments out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas as are necessary to give effect to any Act of the present session to make further provision in relation to the grant by local authorities of scholarships and other assistance to students at approved schools and universities and for that purpose to amend and extend the Local Authorities (Education Scholarships) Act, 1944, and section 10 of the Irish Universities Act, 1908.
Would the Minister give us some idea as to whether anything is covered by the Money Resolution other than the granting of additional moneys from the State?
I do not think there is any proposal involved other than the granting of moneys to the local authorities.
Would the Minister look at some of the points? He spoke of the idea of the State providing money in conjunction with the local authorities as a more democratic way of doing things and of seeing that the conditions in the various localities would be more suited to the areas concerned than the existing way in which there were inconsistencies. The Minister also indicated that there was a testing time ahead. He also indicated that the general idea was of providing better preparation for a testing time in the future.
I shall point out later to the Minister that this is in fact proposing to restrict and damp down the proposals by various local authorities to provide higher university education. In view of the fact that it is proposed to allocate money from the Government in order to establish a pattern, I wonder would the Minister give us some idea as to what inconsistencies he has seen in his proposal because he must have seen that there are some shortcomings in his scheme and that it will mean to local authorities the curtailment of their expenditure on scholarships if there is to be an equitable contribution as between the State and the local authority.
Did the Deputy get the impression that I said the plan was to cause local authorities to curtail their expenditure?
No. Here we are passing a Money Resolution for the purpose of enabling local authorities to do their work democratically whereas the proposals will actually cut across local authorities in some ways which will do little to assist some of the poorer areas.
Is the Deputy trying to make a point? The Deputy assumes that by giving more money we are limiting the number of scholarships.
Yes. You are limiting the local effort. Just as a sample of one of the things I have in mind, the Minister indicates that one-third of the total expenditure only will go on university scholarships and says he will give the local authorities only up to fivepence in the £ as against their expenditure. There are two ways in which South Tipperary will be adversely affected under that proposal. South Tipperary is one of the most progressive local authorities in the matter of giving scholarships generally. In 1960-61 South Tipperary are spending £6,600 on university scholarships and £2,500 on scholarships to secondary and vocational schools. When this Bill comes into operation I understand South Tipperary will have to remodel the situation. We can take the £9,100 they are now providing between university, secondary and vocational scholarships and the £1,530 provided by the State in the first year — £10,630 — and they will be constrained to spend only one-third of that on university education — substantially less than at the moment and perhaps even only 50 per cent.
For the year 1960-61, South Tipperary are providing £9,100 for scholarships. According to the Minister's step-up period they would get from the State in the first year £1,530 from one penny in the £ on the rates. In the second year they would get £3,060.
In the third year, on the basis of their expenditure, they would get £5,355. In the fourth year, confined to a rate of 5d. in the £, they would get only £7,650 from the State when they are to-day spending £9,100. From the point of view of assistance, it is completely distorted from the beginning of the period to the end of the fourth year. Assuming Tipperary stayed at their present rate, they would get only £16,750 in four years' time and they would not be allowed to spend in that year as much as they are spending on university education. They would have to cut it down. I do not think we should pass from the Money Resolution to the details of the Bill without asking if the Minister really contemplates that.
Again, when he speaks of creating better conditions for one locality relative to another, that cannot adequately be done by a centralised area. I indicated before that there are about four county council areas where in the matter of expenditure on education under the vocational scheme they had to be assisted to a more than normal extent by additional supplementary State grants. Leitrim to-day spends £880 on university education and £1,060 on post-primary education, a total of £1,940. They raise £609 by a penny on the rates and, in the third year, with increasing expenditure on their own part, they can hope to get £2,131, which they would not get unless they increased the amount of money they are spending. They, too, would be constrained in relation to their university education and they might not be able to give any additional assistance to university education at all. The Leitrim people are pinned to the measure of their own resources by this Bill. That fact is recognised when it comes to dealing with vocational education, but it is not recognised when it comes to dealing with scholarships. I think those are vital defects of the financial scheme and that is why I raise them on the Money Resolution.
I do not know what is the best way to try to explain the position to the Deputy. By giving more money, you are not contracting the money or giving less. The Deputy cannot argue that.
You are preventing the county that has advanced normally and naturally from spending money on university education.
No.
You are.
The Deputy says we are and I say we are not.
Would the Minister take the figures I gave for Tipperary?
I will try. In the first year, it was £1,500 and in the second year, it was £3,000.
In 1961, Tipperary raised £9,100 from the rates and spent £6,600 on university education and £2,500 on post-primary education.
On 5d. in the rates?
About 6d. on the rates.
The basic problem about scholarships is that you have to plan over a four or five year period. The Deputy understands that, because the life of a scholarship will be four years, you have to provide for the first year and it must be repeated the next year, the following year and the fourth year. In each succeeding year, new scholarships are coming in and you will not know the full amount to be provided until the fourth year. That is where the four years comes in. The build-up is gradual over the four years to increase the fund. If I have the figures correctly which the Deputy gave, the first year it was £1,500——
£1,530 for the first year.
Another £1,530 in the second year.
That is £3,060 in the second year.
That is one and a half times, and not a one and one proportion.
On the present expenditure, that would be £5,355 in the third year.
And in the fourth year, it is up one and a half times again.
That would be £7,650 in the fourth year.
Added to £9,100, you are better off than you were.
But you will not be allowed to spend as much on university education.
The point I want to get at is that the council is in a much wealthier position.
It is bigger.
After all, this grant from the State is a separate thing and I believe it is a wrong proportion to have smaller sums given to post-primary education than to university education when the proportion of people going on to university education from post-primary education is probably one in seven or eight. I think the proportion which exists at the moment in South Tipperary——
Where does the democratic principle in South Tipperary go? Where does the great test our people are up against go, if we must reduce university scholarships in South Tipperary?
The democratic principle is drawn in by the Deputy.
Oh, no; it is not. The Minister brought it in on Second Reading.
On a general basis, but I also said that certain anomalies need to be ironed out of the variety of schemes coming in to the Department for sanction. I said that I thought one of the anomalies is the one which the Deputy has hit upon, the situation where you have almost three times as much spent on university scholarships as on post-primary education. I thought the relationship should be much nearer to what we have in the Bill.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,
I asked for a quorum because we are dealing in difficult and rather rushed circumstances with a matter of very great importance for the educational authorities.
I am in no rush at all.
Very good. The House has shown this afternoon that there is a very considerable rush some place. The Minister says I introduced the democratic question into this. May I draw the Minister's attention to his statement on the Second Reading:
On the other hand, to replace the local authorities scholarship system set up by the 1944 Act by a direct State system would seem to me to savour of a diminishing of a democratic principle, a principle which needs to be strengthened rather than perhaps weakened, and which, in such matters as this, if properly put into effect, can cater better for conditions in one locality relative to another than could an absolutely centralised administrative machine.
The Minister has now indicated that when he arranged in this Bill that not more than one-third of the total fund available to local authorities would be spent on university education, he had in mind that he would regard that as a fundamental principle. I am pointing out he is cutting across a local approach by a first-class body that is spending more money generally for education in relation to its resources than any other place. I am saying that in South Tipperary the local body in the year 1960-61 spent £9,100 on scholarships, £6,600 under the 1908 Act for university scholarships and £2,500 for post-primary. If this Bill comes into force, South Tipperary will not be able in the first year of this scheme, or in the second or third, to add an additional university scholarship to its list. They are already spending £6,600 as against £2,500. Under the Minister's scheme, at the very peak of his contribution to them, he would give them £7,650, as against their present £9,100. That would give them a total of £16,750, but they would be allowed to spend on university scholarships only £5,550 or £1,100 less than they are expending at present.
Does the Minister really ask the Dáil to pass a Money Resolution supporting a scheme that will butt in on a pattern of things that has developed naturally and is, I am sure, making a serious contribution to the testing time, educationally, morally and scientifically, facing this country? I do not think the Minister understood that. But when he now says it is wrong to spend on a pattern like that, that has arisen naturally amongst a rather interested and intelligent people, I believe he is wrong. I am sure there are Deputies here who would like to understand why the Minister should put his foot down and say South Tipperary must not give as much attention to university scholarships in the future under this great scheme as they have been giving in the past. Let me hear any Deputy on the Fianna Fáil benches support that.
We are quite happy here.
I do not believe the Deputy was right in quoting me as saying it was wrong for South Tipperary to do this. I think it is out of balance.
This Bill will prevent them from doing it.
The Deputy has been pointing out how much South Tipperary will lose by getting £7,700 from the Government. They are losing because of a limitation of their right to give what I consider a very unbalanced distribution of their funds. But they will gain on secondary and vocational scholarships, which will go up to £11,000 from £2,500 at present. The Deputy has been seeing only the drop at university scholarship level, but they will gain on post-primary education. Because of that gain they may have to reduce the amount spent on university scholarships. That reduction will bring about a balance between the number of students going on to post-primary education and those going on to university education — a balance which, I think, is a reasonable one. It is a matter of opinion. The Deputy seems to think we should cater only for the university people. But there is a very large number of people who can benefit from post-primary education and who otherwise could not do so if we did not have this scheme.
I would draw the Minister's attention to replies given to questions in the House which showed that the total approximate value of the annual university scholarships given by each county council or county borough council in 1959-60 was £60,000, whereas the value of those for vocational and post-primary education was £90,000. There you have committees working naturally throughout the country, handling their own resources and dealing with the circumstances around them. They pay for university scholarships, say, £2 as against £3 elsewhere.
I am dealing only with one facet of this. The Minister need not put into my mind that I think more money should be spent on university education than on secondary education. I am saying this Bill will prevent a county council, that has been dealing systematically and well with this matter, from giving the assistance to the university education they are giving today.
It will enable them to give very much wider assistance to students needing post-primary education. At the same time it will add to their funds and they will, therefore, be able to give balanced aid to those deserving assistance.
That is all to the good.
I think it is a good thing to do. I should like to point out to the Deputy that there are many counties which will benefit by this legislation. We cannot legislate for just one county. There is quite a formidable list of counties which will in future be able to give both post-primary and university education to children in greater numbers than they were able to cater for in the past. With regard to limiting the democratic principle in certain areas, surely the Deputy must realise that in the world of to-day we need reasonable direction in effort? There must be some central direction and encouragement of effort under our educational system. It is difficult enough to achieve a coherent effort throughout the whole system and this is one way in which we can influence the numbers following the various levels of education. I do not think the Deputy can describe this as gratuitous interference with the democratic principle. It is a reasonable interference at a time when over-all direction is most desirable.
I wonder does the Minister think that the present interference in relation to the amount which may be spent on university scholarships as against secondary and vocational is wise at this stage? Is it wise to have a limitation of one-third and two-thirds? It is not a question of principle. It is a question of the value of money. Everybody realises that much more money is needed for university education as against secondary or vocational education. If the aim is to provide opportunities to take students to the highest level, are we actually limiting ourselves by ensuring that a larger number will be able to avail of secondary and vocational education while, at the same time, curtailing the number who may avail of university education? Does the Minister think that a wise limitation in present circumstances?
I agree with the points made by Deputy Jones. The Bill is a good one but, if it is the intention to improve the position with regard to secondary and vocational education, where do we go from there if there is a limitation from a monetary point of view on university education? In Limerick there is a ceiling on university scholarships of £130 per year. I know a very clever boy, the son of a blacksmith. There are seven children in the family. That boy got a scholarship to U.C.D. With the increase in fees, the increase in the price of books and the increase in "digs" that boy finds life very difficult on £130 per year. I met him the other day and he told me that he can afford only one meal a day in the "Steaming Kettle", or whatever it is called. There seems to be no point in improving the position from the point of view of secondary and vocational education while disimproving the position in regard to university education. I hold that good brains should be given every opportunity to climb to the highest rung of the ladder irrespective of class or creed.
The Minister is a very practical man. I pay him the tribute of saying that I think he is the best Minister for Education we have had since Deputy Seán Moylan. He has a common sense approach. I stress the point that every boy and girl should have an equal opportunity of pursuing university education, the opportunity they would have if they were Deputy General Mulcahy's sons and daughters.
Deputy Mulcahy cites the case of a local authority which has been devoting over £6,000 out of £9,000 to university scholarships and the balance to other types of scholarship. He describes that as a natural development. It is a most unnatural development. It is a most useless development. It is a most illogical development. That development may have been all right 20 years ago when vocational schools did not exist. To-day all the stress and emphasis is on vocational and technological education and it is only right that aid should be increased for such education. It is only right, too, that aid should be increased for secondary education. I thoroughly agree with what the Minister is doing. It will have the effect of more or less holding the number of university scholarships at the point at which they are now in the case cited by Deputy Mulcahy.
No.
Or slightly reducing them.
It will reduce them. It will help Limerick but it will reduce Tipperary.
What it will do and what it is desirable it should do is to bring up very substantially the number of secondary scholarships and the number of vocational school scholarships which will be granted by the local authority in question.
In 1959-60 Limerick spent £1,690 on university scholarships and £1,400 on secondary and vocational scholarships.
Very good.
I understood from the Deputy that that was a benighted outlook, spending more money on university education than on vocational and secondary education. However, Deputy Collins has put his finger on this spot that sufficient provision is not being made on any side for scholarships. At any rate, if the Minister is introducing a pattern it ought not to choke any tendency there is on the part of public authorities to support university education. As regards Tipperary, the scholarship fees given there are nearly as high as those of Limerick City but the students attending the university away from their homes live very difficult lives in keeping themselves in health and keeping up their morale while they are studying. Therefore, the finances that the Minister is providing now, as indicated on the Second Stage, will only be a patch on some of the scholars' breeches.
This discussion has, I take it, thrown a bit of light on what is happening and, without pillorying the Minister particularly, I would suggest he is introducing a bit of west wind, a bit of the Clare mentality into this measure. The Clare people spent £600 in 1959-60 on university education and £3,480 on secondary and vocational education.
Advanced thinking.
Dein machtnamh ar sin.
Tá seanmhachtnamh déanta agam air.
Tá an scéal níos measa ná mar a cheapas é a bheith.
It is seldom Deputy Mulcahy agrees with any thought of mine.
The Deputy only imagines it. He has many of the same ideas I have but he does not get the chance of expressing them.
This type of discussion appeals to me because I come from a poor area and not from the broad acres or town mansions. I speak for the type of people I serve and love. I have studied this question for 12 years as Chairman of the Limerick County Council. There is very little use in our giving 15 or 20 secondary scholarships to Pallaskenry, Warrenstown or any other school to brilliant boys or girls when, because they come from poor homes, they cannot avail of university education. I welcome this Bill the Minister is introducing. In this country we have the brainiest boys in the world and all they need is a break.
I have been here since 1948. I have no animosity towards anyone but I have great loyalty to Fianna Fáil and no one will shake me out of that. It is my desire to serve the people who sent me here from the slumdom of Limerick, the people who are uneconomic holders, as Deputy Jones will know. In spite of difficulties, we have produced great people. They are first class students, both boys and girls, who are getting secondary education but who, when it comes to university education, cannot avail of it because of their poor circumstances. I must compliment the Minister for Education on the efforts he is making to give them a chance in life.
Our area is supposed to be the Golden Vale where we have milk and honey flowing over our boots when we get up in the morning but we have many poor people whom this Bill is meant to benefit. My only regret in connection with this Bill is that the Minister did not provide ten times more for education, both university and secondary. If we can make university education more widely available to our children there are many opportunities for them to become scientists, engineers and so on. We all have something in common here, no matter what we did in the Civil War or in the Black and Tan War, whether we come from Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil — that is, the desire to give our children a chance to take their place in the world of tomorrow.
I do not wish to prolong this discussion on the Financial Resolution. There will be discussions on this matter in every county council and I appreciate what Deputy Collins means when he says we have much in common. He will find he has this much in common with another great Limerick man, the former Deputy Madden, who very often when he was discussing a matter like this would say: "That is all right but what shall I say to the farmers of Kilfinane?" Deputy Collins will have a certain amount of difficulty explaining the financial provisions of this Bill to the Kilfinane farmers who may be represented on the Limerick County Council, if they are interested in education.
What Deputy Collins had in mind was that at the moment they are spending £1,400 on post-primary scholarships and £1,690 on university scholarships. Under this Bill they should be able to spend £6,060 on university scholarships and £12,120 on secondary scholarships. The farmers will be very pleased with that.
When they are discussing next year's estimates, the sum they will have in front of them——
They will have a scholarship scheme the like of which they never had before.
I am sure——
I cannot permit Deputy Collins and Deputy Mulcahy to proceed in this way.
We are not arguing. We are agreeing. We are on the same side.
What side is that? Problems crop up and one is the case of Tipperary. I think the Deputy will now agree that a certain amount of the democratic principle has been lost, subjecting itself to a reasonable direction. The basis of our trouble in arguing this is the limitation of money. Deputies argue in this House as if they were legislating for one of the greatest and richest countries in the world. They accept that a man cannot afford to send a child to a university and yet they cannot see why the State should not be rich and afford everything. We would want to get down to realities, realise that we have a certain amount of money to spend and the question is how best to spend it. I have gone to as much trouble as possible to ascertain what would be the best proportion between the numbers getting post primary education and the numbers going on to university education and fitting that in with the idea of the richest countries which have a considerable amount of money available to them.
In countries which have to work to a Budget and make the best use of a Budget, I have found that the best proportion can be achieved by having one-third spent on university scholarships and two-thirds on post primary scholarships. Anybody who suggests that we must increase university education should be honest and logical enough to say that they will increase them at the expense of the person who would get post primary education. If you are going to take scholarships from young people in order to give added opportunities to those who can afford post primary education, you are doing something that is not just.
I think that on a limited purse I am trying to legislate for a just distribution of the moneys available. I do not think we should provide for people already supplied with post primary education because the parents can afford it. I do not think we should provide university education for them at the expense of students who cannot afford post primary education.
