Adjournment Matters.

Traffic Calming Measures.

Mr. Dooley

I welcome the Minister of State to the House to discuss this important issue. I am concerned about the level of traffic control in new and existing housing estates around the country. My greatest concern is, obviously, for the housing estates throughout County Clare, but I suppose the problem exists in every county.

Local authorities are making no effort to restrict the speed of traffic through estates. Some older estates have wider roads where cars can travel at considerable speed. The nature of modern day living is that houses in many estates are rented out. The result is that many young people in their first job live in these houses and have cars. These people are more carefree and may have a more careless approach than traditional householders. Unfortunately, this makes life extremely difficult for young families living in these estates. The one positive aspect of older estates is that back gardens are bigger and people can let their children play there. However, in many new developments, following the guidelines issued by the Department on greater densities, smaller sites and communal play or green areas, children must spend more time on the public roadways of their estates. This has created a major problem for parents.

We are about to enter the summer period and children will have no place to play except in these open public areas, in close proximity to young men and women who are driving for the first time and who may have a careless approach. Unfortunately, they create a serious hazard. As a result many parents will not let their children out and confine them to small back yards or gardens.

In addition, some councils have not progressed their play programmes or the provision of playgrounds. However, I will not get into that now. My purpose in raising this motion is to seek assistance from the Department for the provision of funding to local authorities that will allow them install speed restricting devices in estates. They should limit the width of roadways, put in some kind of chicane that would cause people to slow down or install speed ramps or bumps. This requires funding and local authorities need help in that regard.

For new estates a revision of planning guidelines could ensure planning conditions are changed to ensure all new developments above a certain size or with roads of a certain length are required to put speed restrictions in place, whether by way of traffic islands or other mechanisms. I have sought the assistance of both town and county local authorities in County Clare in this regard. However, they have refused to put in speed restricting measures for a variety of reasons, mainly funding and the fact that if they put them in one estate they will have to put them in all estates.

We must accept there is a problem. We must deal with the legacy of the existing estates and for future developments we must change guidelines to put a condition on builders to install restrictions. Developers would, in many cases, be happy to do this as the cost would be relatively small at construction stage.

I appeal to the Minister, for the sake of young children, to ensure the Government continues to strive for safer roads and give consideration to these proposals.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. N. Ahern)

I thank Senator Dooley for raising this matter. I accept traffic control is an important issue which could contribute so much to the quality of life in residential developments. Providing homes to people in sustainable communities is at the heart of the Government's policy as set out in the new detailed housing policy statement launched recently. The Government's policy includes a strong focus on building active and successful communities through quality housing and is committed to continuing improvements in the quality of houses and neighbourhoods. Guidance on best practice on planning new housing developments in urban areas is set out in the residential density guidelines.

Recent guidance on the important issue of traffic calming is contained in the traffic management guidelines manual which was issued in 2003 by the Department of Transport and my Department. The essential points of these guidelines will be restated in the Department's new sustainable residential development guidelines which will be available in draft form later this year. The purpose of the Traffic Management Guidelines manual was to provide guidance on a variety of issues including traffic planning, traffic calming and management, incorporation of speed restraint measures in new residential designs, and the provision of suitably designed facilities for public transport users and for vulnerable road users. It was prepared in line with national and regional transport strategy guidelines that promote sustainability and accessibility through improvement to, and better management of, the transport system. It was designed to provide assistance to a wide range of people including local authority officials, developers, voluntary organisations and the general public, and also Departments and their agencies.

Section C of the manual deals with speed management and traffic calming. It gives advice on traffic calming measures, both for existing roads and new roads. A number of traffic calming measures are suggested for existing roads, for example, traffic islands, mini-roundabouts, chicanes, ramps, speed cushions. Guidance is provided in respect of the suitability of the various traffic calming measures for different categories of roads.

On new areas, however, the guidelines state that it is possible to constrain speeds without the need to resort to remedial treatments such as ramps. Here the opportunity exists to use horizontal alignment constraints backed up by good urban design to keep speeds low. The careful positioning of buildings, landscaping and the use of different materials can help to reinforce the need to reduce speed and reduce the dominance of motor vehicles.

A number of further measures are also recommended for new areas. These include entry treatment, shared surfaces, carriageway narrowings and chicanes, speed reduction bends, speed control islands, priority junctions and traffic islands.

Traffic calming measures may be funded under the low cost safety improvement works scheme of grants, once the roads have been taken in charge by the local authority. This year the Department has allocated almost €8 million to local authorities in respect of low cost safety improvement works on non-national roads. Local authorities may also use discretionary improvement and block grants, which are allocated to county councils and urban authorities, respectively, to fund such works. This year discretionary improvement and block grant allocations to local authorities total almost €41 million.

Senators will be aware that development contributions, which are attached as conditions of planning permissions, may be spent on a range of public infrastructure benefiting the development. The relevant categories of infrastructure include traffic calming measures.

I am satisfied, therefore, that planning authorities have available detailed guidance on the provision of traffic control measures in all new housing developments, and also that they have adequate funding for such measures in both new and established areas. The Department keeps the need for further planning guidelines under review.

I fully understand the matter raised by Senator Dooley. Better design can help to reduce many of the problems before they arise. Considerable money is coming into many local authorities through development contributions and council members should press the officials that there is no point in hoarding the money and they have the authority to spend it on items such as those to which Senator Dooley referred. I thank Senator Dooley for raising the matter.

Mr. Dooley

I thank the Minister of State. In particular, the reassuring element here is that the Traffic Management Guidelines of which he spoke issued from the Department of Transport and in many cases may have been taken by local authorities to refer to village environments or roads in built up areas rather than to within the confines of housing estates. The fact that the Minister of State intends to restate these through his new sustainable residential development guidelines will act as a further method of enhancing in the minds of planners the necessity to ensure that speed restrictions and the management of traffic through estates is adequately addressed at the planning stage. I would welcome any further measures he might consider such as his Department putting conditions on developers to ensure a traffic safety audit of developments with more than ten houses as part of the planning process. We ensure safety audits in environmental impact statements and in other cases, and it would be helpful to carry out such audits in advance of applications being granted permission.

Occupational Injuries Benefits Scheme.

Ms O’Meara

I thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing me raise this important matter of the situation faced by a number of former miners in the Ballingarry, Thurles area. Ballingarry was the location for coal-mining for a good number of years. Coal-mining was a strong industry in this area until it ceased a number of years ago.

During the period when this group of miners were working in these mines the level of safety measures which are nowadays taken for granted did not apply. When one speaks to these men one sees evidence of the kind of conditions under which they worked. In some cases, explosions took place in the unvented underground mines in which they worked and carbon monoxide was not able to escape. In some cases, they worked in tunnels only 18 inches high.

Not surprisingly, as a result they have been left with significant and serious health problems some of which could be described as miner's lung, which usually incorporates conditions such as bronchitis, asthma and emphysema which result in breathing difficulties. These are progressive diseases. Other conditions arising from these miners' experiences would include tinnitus, for instance, which is a degree of deafness, and numbness in the extremities including fingers.

I refer to a group of approximately ten men. They feel strongly that their pensions are entirely inadequate and, more importantly, do not recognise the level of disease and suffering from which they are suffering. Having met a number of the men involved, it seems extraordinary that it cannot be recognised that this is a group who deserve to be compensated for the progressive nature of their illnesses in some way for what remains, in some cases possibly a short period, of their lives.

A number of miners have died, some at a young age, as a result of the diseases which they contracted as a result of their work, and this is not being recognised. They have had a long, as yet unsuccessful, battle to be properly compensated for the illnesses from which they suffer.

One of the difficulties they face is that some of them were assessed a good number of years ago for the illness and injury suffered, but there is no possibility of them being reassessed despite the fact that theirs is a progressive illness account of which should be taken in what they receive.

These men feel strongly that they have been abandoned and also that they have been the subject of broken promises. They have been given the impression that there is compensation available to them and one of the matters on which I seek clarity is what is the Government's attitude to this group. The Taoiseach met the group only a short number of weeks ago in Killenaule when he was in this part of Tipperary.

I ask the Minister to clarify exactly the Government position on this matter. I particularly urge the Government to address the case of these miners and ensure they get what they need. Is the Government planning a compensation scheme? If not, why not? What is the Government's response to the claims of the miners? We are talking about a one-off set of circumstances faced by a small number of people and it should not be impossible, therefore, to acknowledge the problem and to deal with it. The men themselves feel very strongly that they made a great contribution to the economy, not only that of their area but also that of the country, at a time when conditions were very difficult. They rightly feel they are now living in a prosperous state and that it, therefore, would not be too much to ask that their suffering be recognised and that they receive compensation as a result.

Mr. N. Ahern

I thank the Senator for raising this issue and will respond to it on behalf of the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan. The social welfare code already provides for payments to former mine workers who suffered a loss of faculty arising from their employment as miners. Disablement benefit, payable under the occupational injuries benefit, OIB, scheme, is a compensation payment for loss of faculty arising out of or in the course of insurable employment. The legislation governing the scheme provides entitlement to benefit for persons suffering from certain prescribed diseases listed in the legislation and where persons have contracted such diseases in the course of their employment.

Miners may be entitled to disablement benefit if they suffer a loss of physical or mental faculty as a result of an accident at work or a disease prescribed in legislation they contracted at work. Medical assessments are undertaken in all such cases to determine the degree of disablement, which is calculated by comparing the state of health of the applicant with that of a person of the same age and gender.

Miners who contracted the prescribed disease pneumoconiosis are entitled to disablement benefit. There are currently 19 miners in receipt of disablement benefit in respect of pneumoconiosis, seven of whom were former Ballingarry miners. These miners and their representatives have also sought to have other conditions, specifically chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, included as a recognised disease for the purpose of the OIB scheme.

The question of whether COPD should be added to the list of prescribed diseases was considered in the Department in 2003 and it was advised that COPD is a common clinical condition that accounts for 10% of total medical admissions to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. COPD is not a condition that is specifically linked to a particular occupation and it is not possible to establish a causal link between coal mining, or any other occupation, and the experience of COPD. Smoking is by far the most common cause of COPD.

The Department was also advised that no EU state, other than the United Kingdom, includes COPD in a scheme equivalent to our OIB scheme. The position in the United Kingdom is that its equivalent of our OIB may be paid to coal miners who have worked underground for at least 20 years and who are diagnosed as having pneumoconiosis with considerable lung function loss. The effect of prescribing COPD or chronic bronchitis and emphysema was not to confer entitlement to people who did not already qualify for the UK equivalent of OIB but rather to enable a higher rate of payment to be made to some pneumoconiosis sufferers in certain circumstances.

In this country, OIB may be awarded where miners develop pneumoconiosis as a result of their occupation. Persons claiming OIB in cases of pneumoconiosis are referred to a consultant respiratory physician in the first instance for an examination and report. This examination consists of a clinical assessment and pulmonary function testing. The latter is a standardised test that establishes the extent of lung malfunction irrespective of the specific medical condition giving rise thereto. Disablement benefit is awarded on the basis of the consultant's objective report, including the pulmonary function test results. If COPD is present in some of these cases, the disablement award will reflect this. Given this background, it was concluded that it would not be appropriate to specify COPD for the purposes of the OIB scheme.

Ms O’Meara

There appears to be a sense abroad that the Government intends to create some sort of special compensation scheme for the miners in question. Is this the case?

Mr. N. Ahern

I do not know as I am only answering on behalf of the Minister for Social and Family Affairs. I am aware that this is a burning issue, as are public representatives in the area in question. As the Senator stated, the Taoiseach met the concerned parties. I have not been briefed other than to say meetings took place. I do not know if there is any action or movement in another direction. I have outlined the view of the Department.

Ms O’Meara

That is why I tabled this matter for that Department.

Mr. N. Ahern

The Senator knows that until a decision is agreed, standardised and processed, one gets a standard reply from the Department. I do not know anything other than that the Taoiseach met the miners, and other public representatives have raised the issue recently. I am not aware of what is happening behind the scenes.

School Staffing.

Mr. Bannon

I welcome the Minister to the House.

This matter concerns the urgent need for the Department of Education and Science to provide an update on the provision of a temporary teacher for St. Mary's national school, Drumlish, County Longford — roll No. 16665S. The position is urgently required to take account of the increased enrolment at this four-teacher school due to the proliferation of new housing in Drumlish. I am at a loss to understand the lack of action taken on this matter by the Department and its untoward delay in providing the school with a temporary teacher until the end of this school year, with a view to upgrading the post to a permanent one next September.

The principal and board of management made an application to the Department some time ago and parents at the school have signed a petition highlighting the overcrowding affecting their children's education. I have received numerous representations from parents, who are concerned for their children, and from the principal, Elizabeth Brady, the board of management and the teachers, who are providing top-quality education in extremely difficult circumstances.

There has been a great increase in the number of houses in Drumlish. Four new developments are already completed and almost 200 houses are now occupied. This has lead to increased demand for places at the school. There were 82 pupils enrolled at the school in 2003 and enrolment now stands at 118. This number is increasing and 120 are to be enrolled by Easter. However, despite the best efforts of the staff, the school is bursting at the seams, such that there is one class with 38 children and another with 31.

Implementing the new child-centred curriculum under such circumstances is extremely difficult. Class size represents the key challenge in the implementation of the curriculum. Smaller class sizes lead to more space for the individual pupils, increased one-to-one contact with teachers, better opportunities for children to engage in discussions and fewer distractions. The teacher becomes more familiar with pupils, can use innovative teaching techniques and has a greater opportunity to identify individual difficulties. Grouping of pupils is more difficult to achieve in large classes. Groups containing large numbers are less effective, whereas too many small groups make it is impossible for the teacher to allow sufficient time for every student.

Why is the Department of Education and Science continuing to turn a blind eye to the situation in St. Mary's, given the proven problems associated with large class sizes and the acknowledged benefits of a realistic pupil-teacher ratio? The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, contributed to yesterday's statements in this House on the Learning to Teach report, when she stated:

All the expenditure and activity in the education system is ultimately designed to benefit the pupils. Central to this is ensuring that the quality of the education they receive is second to none.

The Minister will have to admit that, given the appalling situation in St. Mary's national school, where two classes have 38 and 31 pupils, respectively, her statements will be taken with a grain of salt. Education is the key to our children's futures but closing the purse strings when it comes to the staff needed for dynamic and thriving schools such as St. Mary's is counter-productive. In County Longford, we are extremely proud of schools such as St. Mary's, which have opened their doors to all newcomers to the area, but I am deeply concerned that the Minister will permit them to become victims of their own success. I would welcome a positive response to my request.

Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science (Mr. Haughey)

I thank Senator Bannon for raising this matter today because it gives me the opportunity to outline the position of the Department of Education and Science. The mainstream staffing of a primary school is determined by reference to the enrolment of the school on 30 September of the previous year. The number of mainstream posts is determined by reference to a staffing schedule which is finalised for a particular school year following discussions with the education partners. The staffing schedule is set out in a circular which issues from the Department to all primary school boards of management. Accordingly, all boards are aware of the staffing allowance for their schools in any school year.

Major improvements have been made in staffing at primary level in recent years. There are currently 4,000 more primary teachers than in 2002, the average class size in our primary schools is 24 and one teacher is employed for every 17 pupils at primary level, including resource teachers. Children with special needs and those from disadvantaged areas are getting more support than ever before to help them make the most of their time at school. Given the thousands of extra primary teachers who have been hired by this Government, recent years have seen the largest expansion in teacher numbers since the expansion of free education. Furthermore, this Government is committed to providing even more primary teachers next year to reduce class sizes. All primary schools are staffed on a general rule of at least one classroom teacher for every 28 children. Schools with only one or two teachers have much lower staffing ratios, some having as few as two teachers for 12 pupils, but the general rule is one classroom teacher for every 28 children in the school. Next September, this ratio will decrease to 27 children per classroom teacher. School authorities are requested to ensure the number of pupils in any class is kept as low as possible, taking into account all relevant contextual factors, such as classroom accommodation and fluctuating enrolment. In particular, school authorities should ensure an equitable distribution of pupils in mainstream classes and keep to a minimum the differential between the largest and smallest classes.

A further initiative which has been of direct benefit to primary schools has been the change in the criteria for developing schools. For the current school year, the threshold for getting a developing school post was reduced specifically to help schools which are experiencing large annual increases in enrolments. More than 280 such posts were sanctioned in the 2006-07 school year, compared to 170 in 2005-06. The school to which the Senator referred had an enrolment on 30 September 2005 of 90 pupils, which warranted staffing for the 2006-07 school year of a principal and three mainstream teachers. The school also has the services of one temporary language support teacher and one permanent learning support and resource teacher. The board of management has submitted a report indicating that there were 112 pupils enrolled in the school on 30 September 2006. The mainstream staffing of the school for the 2007-08 school year will be determined based on that figure and by reference to the staffing schedule for the 2007-08 school year. It is expected that this staffing schedule will issue to all primary schools before the end of March 2007.

To ensure openness in the teacher allocation system at primary level, an independent appeals board is now in place to decide on any appeals on mainstream staffing. This primary staffing appeals board has been in place since August 2002. I am sure the Senator will appreciate that it would not be appropriate for the Minister to intervene in the operation of the independent appeals board.

The improvements that have been made in school staffing in recent years are absolutely unparalleled but this Government is determined to go even further, and the 2007 Estimates make provision for an additional 800 primary teachers. About 500 of these will be classroom teachers, which is evidence of our commitment to reduce class sizes. I assure the Senator this Government will continue to prioritise further improvements in school staffing and continue to focus on measures to improve the quality of education in primary schools to ensure increased resources lead to better outcomes for our children.

Mr. Bannon

All I am requesting is the appointment of a temporary teacher until September. Children receive only one chance at primary education but parents and staff are concerned that the pupils of the school are not getting a fair chance because the pupil-teacher ratio is too high.

The Minister of State might cut through the bureaucracy and red tape to appoint a temporary teacher until September, when the school will automatically qualify for an extra teacher. It is important that politicians deliver for their communities. In health, education and law and order, the system is top-heavy with bureaucracy but, as politicians, we have to be seen to cut through the red tape to deliver services. Mine is a simple request but it is a very important one for the children of the catchment area of Drumlish. I would be grateful if the Minister of State used his good offices to act on their behalf.

Mr. Haughey

Some level of bureaucracy is necessary to ensure consistency, openness and accountability. The school has the services of one temporary language support teacher and one permanent learning support and resource teacher. The staffing schedule for the next academic year will issue to the school in March 2007. I will bring Senator Bannon's plea to the attention of the Minister, Deputy Hanafin.

The Seanad adjourned at 9.30 p.m. until10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 1 March 2007.

Seanad Éireann debate - Wednesday, 28 Feb 2007