asked the Minister for Education (a) the number of primary schools which have put back the starting time one hour for the winter period and (b) the number which have not done so.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - School Hours.
43.
Postponement of the commencing time in national schools was authorised by my Department's recent circular.
Particulars of school timetables are not furnished to the Department and the information asked for by the Deputy is not therefore available.
The Deputy will recollect that by special announcement I exhorted managers to avail of this arrangement wherever possible.
Is the Minister satisfied with the response?
Does the Minister not agree that this question of changing the school hour has been bungled by somebody? Will he not agree that despite the two requests he made to school managers, the people responsible for opening schools do not seem to care enough about the lives of their charges to put the school opening time back by one hour? Will the Minister agree that another ridiculous aspect is that in this city the children go to school in the dark, they are off for an hour and a half in daylight and then return home in the dark? Would he not agree that the thing is so ridiculous that a small group with a vested interest seem to be doing this to suit themselves and do not care about the children?
(Cavan): Has the Minister power to issue a directive that schools be open an hour later and if he has would he consider doing so?
We had discussions——
Shorten the holidays.
It is a very serious matter and it is so serious that I issued circulars asking the school managers to change but the extraordinary thing is—and Deputies may not know this— that the Department and I found, and I know this from my own knowledge that, believe it or not, parents on the whole are not in favour of having this extra hour.
(Interruptions.)
I am trying to be helpful. What has happened is that in certain rural areas in my own part of the country managers carried out a ballot among the parents and they found that 95 per cent of them were against changing the time because of the practical necessity of——
Getting the children to school.
Yes, having breakfast at a certain time and——
It is the effect that the Minister had on Roscommon. They think that the sun is early down there.
All my leanings are towards what Deputy Spring, Deputy Tully, Deputy Fitzpatrick and Deputy Cluskey want. That is why I issued the circulars. My information is that this would cause practical difficulties——
Does the Minister believe that the majority of fathers are going out to work at 8 o'clock in the morning? Had the Minister any consultations with the Department of Transport and Power? Is he aware that a large number of rural schools have no light whatever?
I agree.
And these schools which have not got sufficient light made a request to the parents to have the time altered so that they would have sufficient light to look after the children.
I agree with the Deputy.
Then do not be talking through your hat.
I am not talking through my hat.
This is far too serious a matter to try to score political points. I am sure that the parents will put the lives and safety of their children before their own convenience. I would urge the Minister to direct the school managers not to open the schools for another hour in the mornings. I am quite convinced that as far as Dublin is concerned he will have the wholehearted support of Dublin parents.
The Deputy can be assured that I have already done this on the basis of two exhortations.
We seem to have initiated a debate.
Will the Minister issue a directive?
There are certain difficulties about giving a direction.
If we tell the parents not to send their children to school until 10 o'clock—which we propose to do——
I am all for it.
(Interruptions.)
Take a rural area in which there is no light——
We seem to be having a debate rather than Question Time.
This is a very serious matter and as Deputy Cluskey said it is too important to be bandied around. I agree with the views expressed and I have already pushed myself to the limit of what can be done by way of exhortation in this respect and how far I can go by way of direction—and this point is still being examined. The practical facts are, and let us face up to them, that the great majority of parents are against doing what I and Deputies would regard as being reasonable.
Can the Minister say when and where the surveys were carried out?
I get the reactions.
The Minister made a statement that surveys were carried out——
In Roscommon.
Not in Roscommon only, in Dublin.
(Interruptions.)
Question No. 44.
(Cavan): Surely the Minister is aware that parents are terrified lest their children may be killed or seriously injured in the dark?
I grant you that.
(Cavan): Apart from the parents' point of view, surely from the motorists' point of view travelling in the dark between 8 and 9 o'clock in the morning is a terrifying experience—driving along country roads or in towns and just missing children by a miracle.
You are pushing an open door as far as I am concerned. I have issued two exhortations but it was extraordinary, when we were discussing the question, the resistance we got to what everybody here would regard as being the reasonable and proper thing to do, to have a later opening hour.
Where were the surveys carried out?
There is a conflict here——
There is a group of Fianna Fáil supporters who believe that the Minister wants it that way.
There is a large number of people who have an administrative problem in getting the children to school——
There is the question of all the family having breakfast around the table in the morning.
(Interruptions.)