Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 1 Aug 1961

Vol. 191 No. 13

Committee on Finance. - Local Authorities (Education Scholarships) (Amendment) Bill, 1961 — Committee Stage.

Section 1 agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Question proposed: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."

General Mulcahy

The Minister is now embarking on a pattern of education. We have heard a lot about the necessity for having increased scholarships for secondary and vocational schools. According to the Minister's theory, two-thirds of the money that will be spent from the accumulated funds of the local authorities and the State will be spent on scholarships in secondary schools and vocational schools. Would the Minister give us an outline of the object of this general provision in the scheme of things?

We have been waiting for the report on secondary education for quite a long time — six or seven years now. It will soon be a year since the report was in the Minister's hands. There was no publication of it. At any rate, there is an outlook on what secondary education means to the country. There is an outlook on what the developing system of vocational education means to the country. Here we are providing scholarships. The level at which scholarships will be granted is being made a local level within the particular local fund. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have some understanding as to what tests will have to be gone through by children competing for scholarships at secondary and vocational level. Generally, what is the Ministerial approach in this new pattern and plan as to where the secondary education scheme and the vocational scheme lead?

Dr. Hillery

Section 2 of the Bill provides that one-fourth of the moneys be distributed without reference to the means of the parents of the child. I do not think it has anything to do with the test.

General Mulcahy

What standard of test is being applied? What is the machinery in respect of applying the test in regard to the people who are competing for these scholarships?

Dr. Hillery

There will be a competitive examination at 6th standard national school level. The standard will be competitive.

General Mulcahy

Who sets the syllabus for that? Who carries out the examination?

Dr. Hillery

The Department of Education.

General Mulcahy

Is it an examination that is applicable to the country as a whole?

Dr. Hillery

Everybody will enter for it. There will not be a separate examination by each local authority. There will be a general examination.

General Mulcahy

Is that a new scheme?

Dr. Hillery

They have it already on a smaller basis. In regard to the scheme that already exists, the examination is set by the Department of Education but the scheme is administered by the local authority.

Mr. Jones

One-fourth of the moneys provided by county councils will be available without the means test. At the present time in local authority areas there is a means test laid down for the award of scholarships. Now the Minister under this section proposes to release one-fourth of those moneys so that they will be applicable to the State at large without the application of any means test. The Minister mentioned that the examination would be of 6th standard primary school level. Will there be an age qualification? If one-fourth is now the amount laid down, it appears we are going to provide equally for people who could afford to provide education for their children.

The Minister used the argument that, having provided secondary education and having taken them so far, the students ought to be able to provide university education for themselves. We are restricting it somewhat. We are providing for one-quarter without a means test at this stage and three-quarters subject to means test. Will there be a direction in regard to the means test? Is that left to the discretion of each local authority? Will this be a nation-wide means test or does each local authority lay down its own type of means test under this section?

Dr. Hillery

The point about one-quarter is that, no matter where you fix the upper limit of a means test, there will be, along that border, people of great merit who may be excluded by the means test but who, belonging to a big family, and so on, would not be able to afford to go on. The extra quarter would catch those.

I wanted a principle in this legislation. That is why I talked about patterns. There were patterns there for those who could see them. The principle is that if there are brains in the country, we should get them through the full course of education as far as we can afford to do so and that they should earn their way on merit. This giving of a quarter is establishing the principle that merit will be rewarded, regardless of anything else.

I hope that, in time to come, there can be very much greater expansion of these schemes. In this original essay, I want to lay down principles which I think are good educational and good social principles.

Mr. Jones

In Limerick, there is provision in the scheme whereby, under the means test, due regard is had to the number of children in a family. An applicant in a large family is allowed certain concessions in regard to valuation. Will this introduce a fresh principle in relation to the size of the family?

Dr. Hillery

A means test exists in the 1944 Act for post-primary scholarships. That will continue as an amended Act. In this Bill, a control is introduced. The Minister sanctions schemes by local authorities. Part of the schemes to be sanctioned is the means test. The Minister has the right to withhold sanction. The Minister will have a say in the overall picture of the level which the means test should reach. Therefore, the Minister will have more control than previously as regards the means level. There is quite a variation from local authority to local authority. In some cases, the levels are set in such a way as to be unjust.

Mr. Jones

That was the point I wanted to elicit from the Minister on Second Reading. I asked him if he would exercise a measure of control over the council. The Minister will now have control in a certain sense.

General Mulcahy

Can the Minister hope to get any uniformity in the value of secondary and vocational scholarships? One of the reasons for a joint scheme was that there would be disparities and discrepancies between a State and a local scheme. I take it that anybody looking at the matter from the high seat of the Department of Education would consider the monetary value of a scholarship to a secondary school. He might consider that the Department of Education ought to be able to come to a detached conclusion and then get agreement from the local authorities.

What is the Minister's idea of what a scholarship should be to enable a young fellow to go through four or five years in a secondary school? There is a very considerable grievance, in relation to some scholarship schemes, that if the candidate who gets a scholarship resides within five miles of a secondary school, he or she is given a scholarship of £15 and told to attend the day school. If the candidate resides at a greater distance than five miles from a day school, he or she is given a scholarship to a boarding school. Even in the case of boarding schools, the scholarships given by most local authorities are most inadequate. If a child, on his or her merits, is being given a full course of secondary education, the family should be relieved of a considerable amount of responsibility for the child's upkeep during such period of education. That applies even more so to university scholarships.

What does the Minister consider should be the size of a scholarship for a boy or girl under this scheme who will spend four or five years in a secondary school? Does he not think it invidious to make a distinction between the amount of the scholarship given to a student at a day school and a student at a boarding school? Boarding school costs are very high but the costs of keeping a young person at home, looking after equipment, books and general education are quite substantially near those of a boarding school. It is an important matter.

Mr. Collins

On the question of scholarships to secondary schools, I would point out that nowadays there are secondary schools within easy reach of almost all our pupils. They can attend them and go home in the evening. No matter how many secondary school scholarships we may create, we have made a great advance in the provision of secondary school education. Right at our doors in every part of rural Ireland, there are secondary schools which our boys and girls may attend and then go home in the evening. I see students cycling six or eight miles to school on a winter morning and coming home again at about 6 p.m. As the Minister outlined, the giving of as many scholarships as possible will be a great help to people in poor areas.

Deputy Jones mentioned the position in Limerick and we intend to go all out in implementing the Minister's Bill. I should like to see the students being properly facilitated by being sent to either University College, Dublin, or the university in Galway or in Cork. We do not want those boys and girls to come to Dublin with the bare minimum. We have at the moment boys and girls in County Limerick with £130 and most of that is eaten up by fees and the cost of books.

I know of boys and girls in my own county who are striving to advance themselves through university education and they can afford only one meal a day. I try to advance the position in Limerick and to give those people more than they are getting at the moment. This is a "break" for them and I hope they will survive, but I do not like to see boys or girls, whether they come from Wexford, Cork or Waterford, the best brains from homes in rural Ireland, coming up here for scholarships which will not enable them to live in comfort. I know that that is so and I have evidence that it is so.

I know of boys and girls from my county living in this city on one meal a day. Where are we going to end in the local authorities in trying to get our boys and girls to fit into the lives they would like, as scientists, chemists, engineers or whatever it may be? We should step up the emoluments we can give them. I congratulate the Minister in bringing forward this Bill and making——

An Ceann Comhairle

We are discussing Section 2.

Mr. Collins

I do not know whether it is Section 2 or Section 3.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is what I should like the Deputy to remember, that it is Section 2.

Mr. Jones

In regard to this question of the allocation of scholarships, is there any reason, now that secondary education is spreading in the rural areas, why the local scholarships should be less for the person attending a day school than for the person attending a boarding school? After all, the cost is somewhat the same. The parents have to maintain the child at home just as the child has to be maintained in a boarding school. The fees charged for secondary education are very modest. Why there should be a limitation on the amount provided for a day school as against a boarding school, I cannot understand. A child awarded a scholarship should get the benefit of the scholarship as a whole.

Mr. Ryan

I am very glad to hear this matter being aired by such knowledgeable people with such emphasis. I referred to it on the Second Stage and unfortunately I was not present when the Minister was replying. I have since scanned the reports and I do not think I am wrong when I say that the Minister did not deal with it then. I hope he will deal with it now so that some guidance may be given to local authorities and to those who allocate scholarships, to ensure that the grossly unfair difference between the amounts paid to boarding school and day school students will be abolished. As Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Jones have pointed out, the cost of maintaining a child at a day school while the child is at home is only marginally less, if at all, than the cost of maintaining a child at a boarding school.

In a boarding school, the child will enjoy certain facilities at a fairly reasonable charge. I understand that boarding schools have their own libraries; they have their halls of study; they have their playing fields. Many of them have their own cinemas and other forms of entertainment. The students are living in and it costs them nothing to go to many of those things, but a day student may well have to have bus fares provided not only to and from the school but to the playing field and all the other places where boys go when they have spare time. Many books which are available to students in boarding schools have to be purchased by parents of children who are not in boarding schools and the daily burden of the bus and train fares, particularly in places like Dubline City, can be quite considerable and not infrequently will far exceed the amount charged by school authorities.

We are particularly fortunate to have the Irish Christian Brothers to provide a first-class education for many of our students at a nominal rate. I know that in my day there were many students paying more in bus and train fares than had to be paid in fees to the school itself. If those boys had been attending boarding school, there would have been a vastly greater scholarship given to them, but the parents for various reasons decided they should attend day school. We should allow parents to exercise their choice of school independently of financial considerations and you are putting a bait before them if you give scholarships which are three or four or even five times greater for attending at a boarding school.

There may be those who feel that a boarding school education is better than a day school education and they should get it on the same terms as those who decide to send their children to day school. There are many families in which, for domestic reasons, the parents, as much as they would like to send their children to boarding school, do not do so. The head of the family may be in indifferent health and the child may be wanted for various chores about the house or on the farm, all activities which form part of the education and the bringing up of the child. They are not things which interfere with studies, as long as they are not engaged in to excess. These are very practical domestic considerations and parents who send their children to a day school should not be regarded as deserving of less assistance than those who send their children to boarding school.

There is great wear and tear on the clothes of children who have to travel a long distance to school. Parents may feel that the lack of a hot meal during a long school day will be injurious to health and have to make costly arrangements to provide a child with a hot meal whereas a child attending a boarding school will get regular meals and will not get a few duckings a day in rainy weather. The child who attends a day school is exposed to these hardships and additional cost is imposed on parents in safe-guarding children against them. The gap which has unfairly existed between students attending boarding schools and students attending day schools should be closed. I hope the Minister will be in agreement with us.

Dr. Hillery

I do not know what section we are on now as we seem to have travelled over many. The question of the value of scholarships has not been put into the Bill. It will be a matter for local authorities to submit schemes for sanction but I hope it will be possible to have realistic values and to relate the scholarships to actual needs. At present many scholarships are awarded which are of so low a value as to be of absolutely no use to people most in need of scholarships. In fact, they are useful only to people who could otherwise go on for post primary, secondary or university education. I intend that every considertion such as those put up by the Deputies will be borne in mind when schemes come to me for sanction and that in sanctioning a scheme all relevant factors will be taken into account. I sincerely hope to see the end of the £10 scholarships of which we see so many now.

On the question of boarding school versus day school, I think it necessary to point out that a boarding school for one boy may be the day-school of the boy living near it. They are not necessarily separate types of institution. Sometimes they are but most of them are both boarding and day schools. They are day schools for those living near and boarding schools for those not living near enough to a school to attend daily and who are boarded at or near the school at their own expense. The schooling given is the same in both cases. The question of a differentiation will arise only in cases where students win scholarships and have not a school near them which they could attend as day pupils. It will then arise that a scholarship, not alone to the school, but to board in or near the school, will be necessary and there will have to be a differentiation.

It will be possible for local authorities to submit schemes allowing such students the extra money necessary to permit them to board at a school and to receive their schooling while boarding there, but I visualise that nobody will get a special type of scholarship to take him away to a boarding school if there is a day school, say, within five miles of his home.

Mr. Corish

Will the Minister, in fact, be able to do anything if a local authority provides what he regards as an inadequate scholarship?

Dr. Hillery

The sanction stays with the Minister and the question of money also.

Mr. Corish

If the local authority determine a scholarship to be £X in value and the Minister thinks it should be £X plus £Y, what can he do about it?

Dr. Hillery

The scheme containing the scholarship would be refused sanction and the reason given and the local authority would be expected to submit an amended scheme——

Mr. Corish

Expected to, but the Minister cannot force them to do it.

Dr. Hillery

If they want to get sanction and if they want to get the money from the Central Fund, of course, they will have to do it.

Mr. Corish

You know how mean some of them have been and can be. I want to know if the Minister has provided himself with any power now to ensure that the scholarships will be adequate?

Dr. Hillery

The refusal of sanction. What other power could we provide?

Mr. Corish

Let them stew in their own juice, then?

Dr. Hillery

That is why I asked on Second Reading for the help of everybody on local authorities and all the people in this House.

Mr. Corish

They are not known for their generosity, despite the speeches made here tonight by local representatives.

Dr. Hillery

I think it is just a matter of training public opinion to the new demands. Public opinion is rapidly getting ahead of our thinking. I believe we will get a much better response than we have up to now.

Mr. Corish

I hope you are right.

General Mulcahy

As a final word on the value of scholarships, will the Minister consider what effect on the level of scholarship value the type of scholarships that are given by the State on the intermediate examinations have? A certain number of scholarships are given for boys, some first class and some second class, and the same for girls. I do not know whether the highest of these scholarships is more than £40.

Dr. Hillery

£40.

General Mulcahy

I would like the Minister to consider what £40 means at the intermediate stage in respect of people of quality who are going forward for their final two years in the secondary school. Would he give serious consideration to that? He might, by getting a more realistic idea as to what that scholarship is intended to do, influence public opinion as to what ought to be given by way of scholarships.

Dr. Hillery

There is no question of public opinion there. It is the Minister's opinion in the case of intermediate scholarships. My own opinion is that scholarships should exist from the primary into the post primary level and from post primary to higher technological and university. I do not see any point in intermediate scholarships at all except as prizes. That is my considered opinion.

General Mulcahy

They should not be called scholarships if they are prizes.

Dr. Hillery

I would regard them as prizes and would not regard them as of very great value in the scheme of things.

General Mulcahy

They have a very destructive influence.

Dr. Hillery

They have. There is more to be said against them than for them.

General Mulcahy

Do not cut them away but call them prizes.

Dr. Hillery

The Deputy said first that they had a destructive influence and I agreed with him.

General Mulcahy

They have a destructive influence as scholarships. Retain them as prizes. Do not let them be taken into consideration when a local authority wants to give a scholarship, as part of the means test.

Dr. Hillery

I do not think they should be considered in a complete scholarship concept at all. I do not think they have any useful value. They may have a destructive competitive effect.

General Mulcahy

When I speak of a destructive effect I mean a destructive effect on the minds of those people who figure what a scholarship is and what it ought to be. There is a very bad headline there.

Dr. Hillery

I am interested in it from an educational point of view.

General Mulcahy

The £40 is called a scholarship for the last two years of secondary education.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 3.

Question proposed: "That Section 3 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Ryan

In most mature countries, recognition has long since been given to competent bodies of students who are heard by the appropriate Department of Education and by the university colleges in the States in question. My information is that here there has been consistent refusal on the part of the Department of Education to listen to or to receive representations from the Union of Students in Ireland or their predecessors, the National Students' Association.

Dr. Hillery

I do not see how that arises on a Scholarship Bill.

Mr. Ryan

It most certainly arises because if anybody can advise the Minister or his Department on the manner in which scholarships should be awarded or on the amount of scholarships it is surely the students.

Dr. Hillery

The parents will pay the fees, not the students, in case the Deputy does not know.

Mr. Ryan

Nevertheless, the need for scholarships and for assistance arises in relation to students and there are many students who are paying their own way through universities who are really in need of assistance because they are endangering their health and jeopardising their education because they have to work during their recess in jam factories in England for 14 or 16 hours a day.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This does not arise on the section.

Mr. Ryan

It arises very pertinently on the section because the Department has refused, year after year, to listen to pleas of students——

Dr. Hillery

Would the Deputy produce any evidence whatever of any person to substantiate what he has said?

Mr. Ryan

The persons who gave me this information are not in this House. They were in the vicinity earlier. As recently as 1959, the Department informed the Union of Students of Ireland that the Department would not communicate with them——

Dr. Hillery

This has nothing at all to do with this Bill, but if the Deputy wants information on it, I shall let him have it.

Mr. Ryan

I am not accepting the Minister's ruling. He has not the function to rule on it. We have the sorry plight of being the only country in the world who will not give students the responsibility of consulting with the Department of Education, and while we may all feel that students at large are irresponsible, there is one way of making them responsible, that is, by giving them some responsibility and I think the courtesy ought to be extended to the Union of Students of Ireland of at least acknowledging their communication. They should be heard at least once a year on the multitudinous problems which affect them and which are jeopardising their health and their education.

Mr. Collins

I cannot understand the Deputy's admonition in respect of university students who go abroad. I do not want to blow my trumpet but my son is president of the Students' Union of University College, Dublin, and he knows that many students here in Dublin go abroad to work during their recess and that they are a credit to this country. Some of them work in the hop fields of Kent, others in the Channel Islands and in the Isle of Man. They have never let their country down. Therefore, I cannot understand Deputy Ryan, being a Dublin man, complaining about their going abroad.

Of course Deputy Ryan, being a Dublin man, is well found and well fed but I can take him down to Kerry or West Limerick where so many students come from humble homes. They like to go abroad and, to my mind, it is much better for them to do so than to spend their holidays at home living like wasters. Those who have gone to Britain and elsewhere have brought nothing but credit on their country and have come back independent and not as burdens on their parents. Accordingly, I think we should be very proud of the students we send abroad.

Mr. Ryan

I am very grateful to the Deputy for helping to make my case. He said that some of our students are not properly clothed or fed and that in order to keep body and soul together, they must go abroad. I would be the last in the world to restrict students of this country to the green fields of Ireland but I reiterate that it is wrong for the Department to refuse to meet them——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has already said that.

Mr. Ryan

But Deputy Collins has deliberately misrepresented me. He has suggested that I launched an attack on the students who have the time and the disposition to go abroad. I did not say that. I said that the Department had refused to listen to the students, many of whom cannot get university education unless they go over and sweat in the factories of England.

General Mulcahy

I should like to correct Deputy Collins's interpretation of Deputy Ryan's statement. I just want on the section, to reiterate my complete objection to what the Minister is doing under it. We are dealing with the Act of 1908 under which the county councils and the county boroughs of this country were given power to assist university education in Ireland from the local rates and they have done it in a very valiant but very struggling way. The Minister will understand that I am not making any personal reflection on County Clare when I say that Clare, where a penny in the pound produces approximately the same as in South Tipperary, compares very unfavourably with it. Clare spends only £600 a year on university scholarships while South Tipperary spends £6,600. While secondary education is valuable and while scholarships to secondary schools may be an incentive to get our young people to go to them, the fact that scholarships are available to universities is a strong inducement to young fellows of talent since it helps them to bear the cost and the strain of higher education. Here the Minister is definitely reducing that inducement.

Dr. Hillery

I am increasing it.

General Mulcahy

The Minister should take the situation as it is to-day where quite a number of county councils will be prevented by this section from giving the same number of university scholarships——

Mr. Collins

That is wrong.

Dr. Hillery

The majority of local authorities will increase their university and other scholarships.

General Mulcahy

"Live horse and you will get a little grass."

Dr. Hillery

We are giving the money. That is why we want this Bill to get through the Dáil.

General Mulcahy

The Minister is giving us no help in understanding what is involved in Section 3.

Dr. Hillery

What difficulty has the Deputy?

General Mulcahy

I put it to the Minister that under Section 3, South Tipperary will not be able to give one extra scholarship in the coming year or in the year after. Because of the terms of Section 3, they will be prevented from spending the money.

Dr. Hillery

They will not.

General Mulcahy

I urgently request the Minister to have a look at this measure between now and Report Stage and to reconsider the figures quoted by him in answer to Parliamentary Questions on 11th July last. Will he associate the figures of the various counties financing university scholarships and secondary scholarships, and have a look at the amount a penny raises in each county? I am asking the Minister if he will do that quietly between now and Report Stage.

Dr. Hillery

I thought I had explained on the Money Resolution that the county council in whose interests the Deputy wants us to legislate for the whole country, the local authority of South Tipperary, will get more money under this Bill— about £7,000 more.

General Mulcahy

In five years' time.

Dr. Hillery

In four years' time.

General Mulcahy

Four years.

Dr. Hillery

Why all these little pin pricks of "five" instead of "four"? Why not stick to the facts?

General Mulcahy

I accept four. They get only 5d. in the £.

Dr. Hillery

This will give £7,000 more money from the State which they will not have to raise from the rates. It will allow them to spend £11,000 on post-primary scholarships, as against the £2,500 they are allowed at the moment. It will change the proportion between the post-primary and the university scholarships. This is not done on an unconsidered whim but after a study of the proportion of the students taking post-primary and university education over each part of the country. It will reduce it to a reasonable proportion. If the Deputy says he does not want this interference with what is granted to South Tipperary, if he is honest and says that, I will be satisfied, but when he tries to prove that they will have less money when I am giving them more, it is very hard to be patient.

General Mulcahy

If the Minister will face the point I am putting simply before him——

Dr. Hillery

I will face any point.

General Mulcahy

What I am concerned with is what will happen when the authority in South Tipperary come to review their scholarship scheme next year, the year after and the year after.

Dr. Hillery

I think I see the difficulty.

General Mulcahy

Let me try to be honest. I told the Minister that according to the information he gave here on 11th July last, South Tipperary spent in 1960-61, £6,600 on university scholarships, and £2,500 on post-primary scholarships. They spent £9,100. Assuming they raise money at the same rate next year, they will get £9,100 and the Minister will give them under this Bill the sum of £1,530. They will therefore have £10,630 to spend. The Minister says in Section 3 of this Bill that statutorily they will not be allowed to spend on university scholarships more than one-third of that amount. One-third of £10,630 is £3,540 and they are spending £6,600 on university education today. Is there anything dishonest in my asking the Minister to look at these figures?

I am asking the Minister to look at Section 3 and tell us does he not consider that the provisions of Section 3 would prevent the South Tipperary people from spending as much money on university scholarships next year and the year after as they are spending at the moment. That is the circumscribed question I am putting to the Minister; it is the circumscribed point I have been making. It is one clear point to show that this Bill will create serious difficulty for any county council which has been generous or progressive in dealing with university scholarships. I would say again to the Minister that the university scholarship scheme is a great attraction and enables people to get secondary education.

Dr. Hillery

The difficulty, I think, is the transitional period.

General Mulcahy

Of how many years?

Dr. Hillery

Four years.

General Mulcahy

Could we deal with next year and what they will do with the £6,600 they are spending on university education today?

Dr. Hillery

The Deputy is very impatient. Next year, they will get from the State the amount of money which has to be raised locally by a rate of 1d. in the £. The new scholarships provided out of the new money will be subject to regulations under this Bill, but the carry-over of their other scholarship scheme will not be governed by them. Is that the difficulty? That is for next year. In four years' time, we will have the new fund and the whole scheme will be governed by the regulations, but next year new scholarships will be provided in the proportion of one to two.

General Mulcahy

Will the Minister put that in the Bill?

Dr. Hillery

It is in it. That is what the Bill means.

General Mulcahy

Will the Minister read out for me the words in this Bill that will assure me that if South Tipperary raise £9,100 next year, as they did last year, and get £1,530 from him, and then have £10,630, they will be statutorily empowered to spend £6,600 on university scholarships?

Dr. Hillery

They will have no option but to meet the commitments of the students in the university at the moment. They will have to continue meeting those commitments. The council will be paying the fees of the students in the university after this year's competition, last year's competition and the competition of the year before. There is no question of taking people out of the university if what the Deputy says is correct.

General Mulcahy

Will the Minister consider between now and Report Stage and let me have the words that are in that section which will make it possible for the council to be in that position?

Dr. Hillery

It is paragraph (b) of Section 3: "...under a scheme or schemes approved of under Section 2 of the Principal Act, in that year..."

General Mulcahy

Would the Minister sleep on it?

Dr. Hillery

I think it would be better if everyone else woke up! Section 3 (b) states specifically "in that year". It does not relate to any expenditure to which the council is committed at the moment but to the scheme coming in "in that year". They will be new schemes, receiving money from the State for the first time.

General Mulcahy

I shall accept the Minister's courteous invitation to sleep on it, and we can finish it on Report Stage tomorrow.

Dr. Hillery

I did not ask the Deputy to sleep on it. Au contraire.

General Mulcahy

The Minister spoke certain comforting words on Section 2 with regard to the size of the scholarships. Is it the Minister's intention to have serious consultations with people who have looked after students, and know what students have to go through in attending the university, with a view to seeing that new scholarships are fixed at a level which will enable them and their parents to have quiet minds? It is one thing to have young engineers going into an engineering firm and widening their experience or to have university students going to work in France or elsewhere to work up a language; but it is a different thing altogether having them doing drudgery work in order to get a few pence to buy books or something of that kind.

Dr. Hillery

I think that work by university students is quite common in every country. I am in touch with the people in charge of these institutions. I understand the children of quite well-to-do parents go to work abroad in summertime, so there must be more to it than the money. I hope we shall be able to have scholarships adequate for the needs of the students, but whether that will stop them or not I do not know.

Mr. Ryan

So long as they do not have to go abroad and work continuously for three weeks.

Dr. Hillery

Does the Deputy mean to stop them or to make the scholarships such that they do not have to go?

Mr. Ryan

I am not suggesting they should be stopped. They should not be compelled economically to work every day of their vacation 18 hours a day, as some unfortunates have to do, to pay their fees. Their fees and maintenance should be paid for. If they want to go and work, they should be allowed to do so, but then they should have a decent holiday.

Dr. Hillery

I hope the scholarships will be adequate and that the need for them to work will not arise, but I doubt whether that will stop them.

Mr. Jones

Do I take it from the explanation the Minister has given that in the first year of this scheme, after the commencement of the Act, the amount which will be provided by the produce of a penny in the £ on the rates is the amount that will be allocated, that that is the amount the provisions of this Act will apply to, and that the schemes that exist at present in the various local authorities will be allowed to run?

Dr. Hillery

They can carry out the commitments they have at present.

Mr. Jones

The produce of a penny in the £ will be a new scheme?

Dr. Hillery

Yes.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 4.

Question proposed: "That Section 4 stand part of the Bill."

General Mulcahy

When we were dealing with the Proportional Representation Bill, we found ourselves in the position that we could not possibly do anything to it by way of amendment. After twisting around in every possible way, I did not know how to get my foot at the door of this section with a view to seeing how things could be assisted. I promise the Minister I shall continue my sleep and try to wake up refreshed to see what is the position in regard to Section 3 and university scholarships. I may be still in my sleep but the Minister, in some way or other, is getting credit for a £ for £ idea in this scheme, but he is getting credit for a £ for £ idea up to a very definite ceiling.

The Minister has fixed the ceiling of 5d. in the £. If the Minister is not sick of hearing of South Tipperary, I want to say to the Minister that South Tipperary is spending more money at present without any compulsion or inducement from anybody except their own outlook on educational matters and the money the ratepayers are apparently satisfied to provide for them. They will never get, according to this scheme, as much money from the State as will give them £ for £.

Dr. Hillery

They will.

General Mulcahy

They will not. They will never get more than 5d. At present they are spending about 6d. The Minister can divide £1,530 into £9,100. That is about 6d.

Mr. Collins

Fivepence three-farthings.

General Mulcahy

There is only £80 of a difference.

Dr. Hillery

The real fact is they are getting money they never got before.

General Mulcahy

The Minister is getting credit for a £ for £ idea, but under this scheme the students and parents of South Tipperary can never hope to get a £ from the Government for every £ they are spending on the rates.

Dr. Hillery

Up to 5d. they will.

General Mulcahy

They are spending £80 more than 6d. now.

Dr. Hillery

They will get equal to the produce of 5d. for nothing.

General Mulcahy

Where does the Minister think the "nothing" comes from?

Dr. Hillery

There is no increase on the rates.

General Mulcahy

Yes. The State is not throwing itself into the educational impulse on a £ for £ basis. In the case of Leitrim, the State is throwing itself in on a £ for £ basis for scholarships—free for those who are particularly brilliant and assisted for those not so brilliant. The Minister knows that in respect of the other schemes for education for which Leitrim and other western counties are responsible, the Department of Education has had to recognise that the Leitrim ratepayers were unable from their own resources to provide the assistance to education on the vocational and technical side thought to be adequate and desirable for the people in order to bring them up to some kind of a reasonable standard compared with outside counties. There is no provision here that will enable the Minister to give the poorest of the counties and the weakest of the rate-paying section of our people anything more than a £ for a £. In fact, some of them will be waiting until the end of four years before they even get a £ for a £. The Minister has only to look at the answers he gave on 11th July. At one glance at a comparison of the tables there, he will see what the position is.

Dr. Hillery

The Deputy might not have noticed it is not a £ for a £ all the way.

General Mulcahy

Indeed, well I know it. People will be surprised when they find it out.

Dr. Hillery

They will never find it out if the Deputy has an opportunity. It is a £ for a £ for the first penny on the rates and a £ for a £ for the next penny, but it is 30/- in the £ for the third penny. The Deputy said the people of Leitrim will have to wait four years. In three years' time, for the produce of a penny in the £ on the rates, they will get a sum equal to the produce of 3½d. in the £. The first point the Deputy made was that South Tipperary, who are striking a fairly high rate for education, will not get more than they are raising from the rates. The Deputy's worry was that I would get credit for giving them £ for £. It should have been clear from the explanatory memorandum.

I did out to give the impression that there would be £ for £. I set a ceiling and I said that, at the end of four years, the full scheme would be working and we would be carrying the scholarship holders of four separate examinations. In the first year it would be £ for £; in the second year £ for £; in the third year 30/- for every £, and in the fourth year 30/-for every £ on condition that the rates were raised one penny each year. The amount the State would be giving would be equal to the produce of 5d. in regard to a county which was itself raising 4d. If a county raised more than that, all credit to the county.

I am not claiming credit for a scheme which has no ceiling. There is a ceiling. I hope the position will be improved in time but, at the moment, there is a ceiling. The Deputy said he was instancing a county which would not benefit equally with the benefit it gives itself. It will benefit in exactly the same way as if it raised its rates another 5d. and without putting another penny on the rates. The Deputy thinks only of South Tipperary. I do not know why.

General Mulcahy

Indeed, I do not think only of South Tipperary.

Dr. Hillery

The average on the rates at the moment is about 3d. For an extra penny over the next four years, all these counties will be able to get an amount equal to the produce of 5d. in their rates without imposing one penny extra. As well as that, there is the added inducement to raise the rate for education by having 1½ for 1, 30/- for each £ they raise, and that will be on the third and fourth penny levied. There is a good deal more to it than the Deputy is prepared to admit. If a county raises more in the rates, then the State contribution will likewise improve. It is to their advantage to raise more but they are not obliged under the Bill to raise more.

General Mulcahy

I must be asleep still. In a kind of half wakefulness, may I ask the Minister again, if he does not mind my mentioning South Tipperary once more, if the amount they raise at the moment is 6d., do I understand from the Minister that, unless they raise 7d. this year, they will not get the penny the Minister talks about?

Dr. Hillery

I am afraid this has got out of hand altogether. A county that raises 6d. will next year, I hope, raise 6d. in order to benefit by a contribution from the Department equal to 1d. on the rates. They will have, therefore, the produce of 7d. on the rates for their 6d. The year after, still raising 6d., they will get a total amount equal to 8d. on the rates—2d. worth of that amount coming from the Department. The third year they will get 3½d. bringing them to 9½d. on the rates without changing the rate struck at all. In the fourth year they will get 11d. without raising their rates one penny.

General Mulcahy

And if they go on?

Dr. Hillery

They can raise as much more as they like, but they will get that much from the State.

General Mulcahy

Apparently I was fully awake at that level and that encourages me to think I am awake at this level. Leitrim spent £1,880 on university scholarships and £1,060 on post-primary scholarships. Last year they spent £1,940 and they raised £609 by 1d. on the rates. If they never raise any more money this year, they will get £609 from the Minister. The following year they will get twice that £1,218. The year after that, if they do not raise more than £1,940, they will not get the 3½d. They will only get £1,940 whereas the 3½d. would entitle them to £3,231.

Dr. Hillery

Would the Deputy say why they will not get it? He gives what they are due for two years. They are still due that for the third year, but the Deputy says they will not get it. They are raising 3d.

General Mulcahy

They are raising 3d., but that only brings them in £1,940.

Dr. Hillery

If they are raising 3d. on the rates they will get £ for £ in the first year and in the second year; in the third year they will get 30/-for the £. They will have three incremental years without changing their rate at all.

Mr. Collins

These are delaying tactics.

General Mulcahy

I am asking very honestly for clarification. In Leitrim, the third year, the Minister assures they will get £2,231. I will sleep that.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 5 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

General Mulcahy

If there has been confusion and if there has been any element of apparent dishonesty on my part, I should like to expunge that completely. I should like to say a few words on the Fifth Stage.

Dr. Hillery

I should not like the Deputy to think that I was imputing any dishonesty to him in my reference to an honest appraisal. It was not intended to carry that implication. However, it is a matter for the Deputy himself.

General Mulcahy

By tradition and experience I am not very thin-skinned.

Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, 2nd August, 1961.