Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 2 Jun 1964

Vol. 210 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Office of the Minister for Education (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy P. O'Donnell.)

Minister for Education (Dr. Hillery)

There are just a few points raised by Deputies during the debate which I should like to answer. The first was in relation to special schools, in which a particular interest was shown. There has been some action in this area. Within the past five years, the number of special schools has increased from 26 to 45 and the number of pupils dealt with in these schools from 1,950 to 2,800.

A special course for the training of teachers of mentally and physically handicapped children was established three years ago under the auspices of St. Patrick's Training College. Since then, 41 teachers have undergone this special course. It is a course for trained national teachers who take this course after their own training. A special diploma course is also provided in University College, Dublin, in conjunction with St. Mary's School for Deaf Girls, Cabra, and 15 teachers have been awarded this diploma. Special staffing arrangements are enjoyed by these special schools and, depending on the type of school, a teacher may be appointed for every ten pupils. In no case are there more than 20 pupils per teacher in a special school.

Generous grants are given towards the cost of the building and improvement of these schools. Special grants are available for the provision of specialised equipment which is necessary such as group hearing aids in schools for deaf children. As well as that, grants are made towards the cost of transporting children to and from school. These transport services are at present operating in Dublin, Cork, Drogheda and Dundalk.

These are some of the measures taken in recent years. Of course, while we await the report of the Committee set up by the Minister for Health to study the problems of these mentally retarded children as well, I am in no way complacent about the position and I know that a great deal remains to be done. Any group, clerical or lay, who come to me for recognition of a special school for the physically or the mentally handicapped can be assured of the greatest possible assistance from me and from the Department of Education.

Somebody suggested that we look into the matter of running water in schools.

Mr. Coughlan

Would the Minister be prepared to provide transport to these schools for the mentally handicapped?

Dr. Hillery

This has already been done.

Mr. Coughlan

Not in Limerick. We had to go around with our caps in our hands, to the people of Limerick in order to provide transport to school——

Dr. Hillery

The Deputy might suggest that they come to see me.

Mr. Coughlan

We had to do it, including the Parliamentary Secretary and myself.

Dr. Hillery

Not to me. I saw neither the Deputy nor his cap, in my time.

Mr. Coughlan

The Minister did not. We did not come to him because we would not be provided with the transport. It is the first we have heard of it.

Dr. Hillery

Limerick is bound to be dealt with as well as Dublin, Cork, Drogheda and Dundalk.

Mr. Tully

Drogheda also—but not with our caps.

Mr. Coughlan

Would the Minister now be prepared to compensate us?

An Ceann Comhairle

Sin ceist eile.

Dr. Hillery

If the Deputy will give back every halfpenny he collected, I will——

Mr. Coughlan

The people of Limerick are so generous that they would not expect it back.

Dr. Hillery

I was talking about water in national schools. I have had a complete survey made of all the schools with a view to providing a water supply in every case where water is available and a supply to the school is not already provided. I think the Deputy who raised that question would be interested to know, too, that there will shortly be a conference between the representatives of the School Managers, the national teachers, the Office of Public Works and my Department to discuss various matters connected with the planning and building of national schools.

Mr. O'Sullivan

Will the Department of Local Government be represented? There is a certain amount of doubt as to where one starts and the other ends.

Dr. Hillery

I have been in communication with the Minister for Local Government on this question of water supplies to the schools. The conference I mention is in relation to the building and planning of the schools. I think it was perhaps Deputy Jones who asked that the teacher be brought more into this area of planning.

Deputy A. Barry talked about the National Gallery. He asked to have catalogues provided. He may not be aware that two publications have recently been issued, the first a catalogue of the oil paintings which runs to about 147 pages, and the other which contains illustrations of the paintings and includes 108 photographs. The position in relation to the extension of the Gallery, about which he asked, is that tenders have been received and a contract will shortly be placed and, so, building operations should therefore commence in the near future. The extension will be sufficiently large to provide ample exhibition space for the pictures at present in the possession of the Gallery and for those which might be acquired in the foreseeable future. There will also be ample space for lecture facilities and work for the restoration of pictures.

The Deputy also asked questions about the insurance of pictures in the Gallery. I think I told the House before, when introducing a Bill here in relation to the Gallery, that the pictures are not insured while they are in the Gallery. The attitude of the people in charge is that the only possible real insurance is security. It is only when pictures are out on loan that people getting the loan are required to take out insurance on them. The amount of insurance so required is laid down by the Governors and Guardians of the Gallery. The pictures which are sent out of the Gallery for repair or restoration are insured by the Governors and Guardians themselves.

Deputy Ryan referred to my desk surgery on the large classes in Dublin. This is a problem in relation to which he seemed to imply that the measures taken to deal with these large classes were panic measures. That implication is in no way related to fact. Dealing with these large classes in Dublin is part of a systematic approach to improving the teacher-pupil ratio which has been going on over the past five years. In that time we have already seen the employment of 664 teachers over and above the normal number previously employed. The problems involved in the ratio between teachers and pupils have been dealt with in order of priority and this year the question of large classes in Dublin city found its place at the head of the priority queue. In January or February last, I had a complete survey made of the position in regard to large classes and it disclosed there were 737 classes in Dublin city with 50 or more pupils. It also disclosed that a very large number of these classes could be got rid of by re-organising the school and making better use of the teaching personnel available.

In some schools, for instance, you had the position of one teacher having over 50 pupils in his class while another teacher had less than 20. With the re-organisation that has taken place to date and with further re-organisation which will be effected at the commencement of the coming school year, the Department is satisfied that with the provision of about 100 prefabricated buildings and a similar number of additional teachers the immediate problem will be fully met. Arrangements for the provision of these additional teachers and buildings have already been made.

Deputy Ryan said that children have a right to go to school and receive education in their own area. I agree fully with that. I find no difficulty there. The difficulty is the parent who claims a right to send his child to a national school outside his own area and who, in fact, subclaims that he should be free to send his child to a national school of his choice. We are not in a position to offer this type of service at national school level. In some cases it would amount to a parent asking me to provide additional school accommodation in an area outside his own while there was vacant accommodation inside his area.

Mr. Corish

You could not plan properly on that basis.

Dr. Hillery

No, but that is what has been happening. It would be duplication of expenditure and I could not entertain it.

Mr. Coughlan

But when a child is refused accommodation in his own area——

Dr. Hillery

I am dealing with the Dublin area and matters arising out of my decision to cut down these very big classes. It was suggested that children were not able to get into schools in their own area and part of the survey discovery was that schools in one area were overcrowded because children from outside areas were coming to them while their own schools were not overcrowded or even fully utilised. That is the problem I am dealing with. I promised Deputy Ryan—and I shall endeavour to ensure—that under any arrangements we make members of the same family will not be compelled to go to different schools. That was one of the problems he raised.

Mr. Coughlan

What about the problem of the child who wants to go to school in his own area and is refused permission while a person from outside the borough is taken in instead as I instanced to you in the case of Limerick? I gave the Minister all the details.

Dr. Hillery

This would be a matter for me to deal with individually. It is not a major problem and here I am dealing with the major problem of large classes in Dublin. But if the Deputy finds somebody is refused permission——

Mr. Coughlan

I have given the Minister all the details over the past 12 months of the case of the Christian Brothers School, Sexton Street, Limerick.

Dr. Hillery

I shall look it up again. It does not bear on the problem I am dealing with now but I shall look into it and see if I can make the Deputy happy about it.

Mr. Coughlan

In that case I am satisfied.

Dr. Hillery

Some Deputies dealt with the teaching of history and its effects on the pupils, and the teaching of parts of our history which caused pupils to develop a hatred of other nations and perhaps a feeling of selfpity which would not help them in after life. It is difficult to deal with the teaching of history because history is history. Anybody looking for definitions will find a variety of them but they all amount to the fact that history is not a namby-pamby thing. It has been described as the story——

Mr. Coughlan

The lie that has been agreed on.

Dr. Hillery

——of the follies of mankind, as philosophy teaching by example. Henry Ford said: "History is bunk." The definition that appeals to me most is that history is a strong and bitter wine. From what some Deputies say when they talk of the way history is taught, it appears they want to have Cromwell without his warts. Cromwell is said to have admonished a painter of his portrait: "Put me in, warts and all." Cromwell's warts, as far as we are concerned, are something like the massacre of defenceless men, women and children at Drogheda. It is there; it happened and there is no justifying it. It may be said that he was a product of his time but the Irish leader of that time, Owen Roe O'Neill, had ample opportunities for massacres but did not indulge in them. If we omitted teaching things like this, we should be making it difficult for our children to understand that our history is the history of a conquest and its undoing. Secondly, it would be difficult for our children to believe that the greatest achievement of this nation was its survival from the longest and most thorough conquest known to history. To appreciate the achievement of our immediate and ancient ancestors and to have some self-respect we must realise that this was a conquest that was associated with persecution, violence and massacres. We must see what we were up against. That holds true in any country.

In the long run, it is the attitude of the teacher that most affects the child's mind and not the actual textbook. This problem is something not confined to our country. I understand that the Council of Europe were so impressed by the liveliness of the subject that they set up an international committee of history experts to look at the history texts in the various countries and make recommendations as to the emendations that might be made in the texts. It is understood that the Council of Europe will publish these recommendations in due course.

Mr. O'Sullivan

I wonder if they will consider the text of "Facts about Ireland".

Dr. Hillery

The Deputy has at least the beginnings of an understanding of the difficulties of teaching history when he makes that interjection.

Mr. O'Sullivan

Quite.

Dr. Hillery

That is about all I want to say in winding up this debate except that I should like to tell the House that complete, adequate and satisfactory arrangements have been made for the holding of the certificate examinations which start tomorrow.

Motion: "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration", by leave, withdrawn.

Vote put and agreed to.