Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 12 Feb 1936

Vol. 60 No. 4

School Attendance Bill, 1936—Second Stage.

Minister for Education (Mr. Derrig)

I move: That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

This is a Bill to amend sub-sections (3) and (4) of Section 4 of the School Attendance Act, 1926. Deputies will probably remember that these sub-sections were introduced in order that the doing of light agricultural work on their parents' land by children over the age of 12 years during two periods of the year—from 17th March to 15th May in the Spring, and from 1st August to 15th October in the harvest—should be accepted as a reasonable excuse for failure to attend school. These sub-sections lapsed on 1st January, 1936, and it was necessary to come to a decision as to whether they should be re-enacted. On the whole, I think there are very good reasons for re-enacting them. In the first place, the reasons which the Dáil had in mind, when they inserted these provisions in the 1926 Bill, still hold. There is no doubt but that farmers, and particularly small farmers, require the aid of their children at certain periods of the year— particularly the Spring period and the harvesting period—and possibly it may be argued, I think with reason, that there is a greater necessity for them to have the aid of their children at the present time than even at the period when the Act was passed into law. The present policy in regard to agriculture means that there will be more work to be done and more demand upon their children's time. The second point which the House had in mind at the time when the sub-sections were put into the Bill was that light agricultural labour had a definitely educative advantage. It is a form of vocational education, if you will, and so long as it is clearly understood that it shall be of a light nature and not injurious to the children, I think that that is a reasonable principle.

We have had a good deal of experience now of the working of these two sections, and, on the whole, I feel that there are sound reasons for re-enactment. They have worked out satisfactorily. The percentage of violations of their provisions is relatively small. On the other hand, it cannot be said that farmers have taken advantage of the sub-sections to keep their children at home from school unless they were really needed. For example, during the last two years I find that, out of a school population of 97,000, roughly, which might have been affected by these sub-sections, only from 34,000 to 36,000 children took advantage of these clauses, and that 34,000 to 36,000 includes all children who remained at home from school during the two periods in question, even though they did not remain for the full period; that is, even though they only remained at home for part of the period and not for the whole of the ten days' period in both instances.

I think, therefore, that, on balance, the Government are justified in thinking that this Bill should be proceeded with and that these particular sub-sections of the 1926 School Attendance Act should be re-enacted for a further period, and we have fixed a period of five years. Therefore, the Bill, if passed into law, will lapse on 1st January, 1941. I do not think that any other question arises, Sir, and if there are any points that Deputies wish to question me about, I shall be very glad to give them any information I have in regard to the matter.

Mr. Keyes

I rise, Sir, to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. I am rather surprised that the Government and the Minister should recommend the re-enactment of these two clauses in the School Attendance Act without going somewhat further, in the light of the nine years' experience the Minister has had of the Bill, into an examination of the Bill in its entirety. I rather expected that the Government would welcome the opportunity that presents itself of allowing these two clauses, which I consider objectionable, to lapse. The bringing of children of tender years from the school into the fields to perform what is presumably light work, but what in actual practice has developed, in my opinion, into a form of heavy and undesirable work quite unsuitable for children of those tender years, is altogether wrong, in my opinion. The pulling, thinning and topping of beet, for instance, is quite unsuitable for young children, in my opinion.

With regard to the educational value of having recourse to the agricultural fields, there is quite ample opportunity presented to the children of the small farmers during their vacation period, or during the long hours after school. As a matter of fact, the vacation period is so fixed as to enable the children to be of help to their parents in the fields and I hold that the vacation periods provide sufficient opportunity for the children to get all the necessary knowledge of agriculture without having to put themselves actually to the heavy tasks of spring and harvest work. These provisions have been availed of to a large extent to allow children to remain away from school and dodge about the country roads, instead of working in the fields —that is, apart from those engaged in actual agricultural operations. I am aware of cases of children living on the outskirts of the city, in cases where work is being done on market gardening, who are clever enough, although they have no claim at all to assist their parents, to know these dates well and who, by means of these provisions, are afforded an easy way to escape school attendance. These two periods, while short in themselves, are spread over nineteen weeks of the school year, and consequently, cause considerable dislocation to the school work in that period. I should have thought that, at the present time, in view of the provisions with regard to the school leaving age, it would be the policy of the Government to recognise that the educational life of the child must be in those years, and that anything that would tend to disturb the educational programme of the child should be set aside unless there were very serious reasons for deviating from the programme.

The Minister tells us that only 34,000 to 36,000 children availed themselves of this. It would be interesting to have an analysis of how many of these children were actually engaged on work and how many were engaged in dodging around the roads and sheltering under the plea that they were assisting their parents. I think that there are other clauses in the Bill that call more seriously for attention than these two clauses. There has been a general laxity and a general tendency for parents to try to get away from the obligation to send their children to school. I hold that the Act wants to be tightened up badly, and yet we find that no action whatever has been taken. Evidently, the Minister and the Department are quite satisfied with the working of that machine. I am aware that several amendments were submitted many months ago to the Minister for his consideration, but evidently they have not been considered worth giving effect to, and the only thing that is proposed to be done is to re-enact what we consider objectionable clauses which, we think, should be allowed to lapse into obscurity. Very considerable objections were offered to these clauses when the main Bill was being passed through this House. It was only allowed to pass owing to the representations of Deputy Heffernan and the Farmers' Party at that time. Deputy Gorey wanted to have nothing to do with it. Notwithstanding the fact that the present policy is one of more tillage, I do not know whether it would more afford an opportunity for adult labour than provide an additional means for exploiting children's labour unduly and unwisely at a period of their lives which should be devoted wholly to their education.

I do not think the Minister has advanced any reasons to justify or warrant the continuance of those clauses. I think the Minister would be much better engaged if he would withdraw these clauses and bring in a Bill dealing generally with the School Attendance Act and tightening up the regulations which are so loose at the present time as to allow plenty of loopholes for children and their parents to evade their obligations with regard to school attendance. For instance, I think the Minister should endeavour to tighten up, as in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, the term under which children may be released or excused from school attendance. It would be well if he could do something to stop the abuses that are taking place, such as where a man with a family of three or four children can keep one at home and, so long as he is not caught with the one particular child at home inside the prescribed period, he can thus evade his obligations. In that way, there can be one of a family of three or four children perpetually at home notwithstanding the school regulations. I do not think any case has been made for the re-enactment of these clauses and they should be allowed to lapse now that the period for their reconsideration has arrived.

General Mulcahy

I do not know whether the Minister or Deputy Keyes appears the more cynical or the more hypocritical in the remarks which they have made on this measure. The Minister wants to extend the provisions of this Act in order to give the farmers the assistance of their children at home at particular periods of the year. We had members of the Labour Party quite recently complaining throughout the country that the wages of agricultural labourers had been reduced from one end of the country to another. They do not really believe that it was anything but the want of money — the incapacity of the farmers to pay the labourers the amount they paid them in the past — that was responsible for reducing the wages of agricultural labourers. In a very large section of the country agricultural labourers who were employed regularly up to a few years ago are no longer getting employment. That was the complaint also of the Labour Deputies throughout the country and now we have disagreement between Ministers and members of the Labour Party as to what should be done in these particular circumstances. The fact is that the farmer's income has almost completely disappeared. Nearly two-thirds of it has been wiped away. There is no suggestion or no promise that any different attitude is going to be adopted, in pursuit of the joint policy of Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party, to put the farmer in a better condition inside the next six or 12 months to pay the agricultural labourer who wants work.

Again we have to recall that a resolution was passed by the County Committee of Agriculture in Wexford in the beginning of last year appealing to the Government to extend the free beef scheme to agricultural labourers, because, as was stated, the average wage paid to an agricultural labourer in Wexford, even to a man with a family, was 8/- per week. The Commissioner in South Tipperary had to face the same representations from cottage rent collectors there.

Mr. Donnelly

Is this relevant to the Bill?

An Ceann Comhairle

The wages paid to agricultural labourers is scarcely relevant to the continuation of the section dealing with attendance at school.

General Mulcahy

I should like to suggest that the continuation of this section is proposed so that the farmers may have the benefit of the labour of their children. It is proposed by the Labour Party to deprive the farmers of the labour of their children. I submit that I am in order in pointing out that the Labour Party wish to deprive the farmers of this assistance at a time when they have put the farmers into such a position that they have had to dispense with the agricultural labourers they have employed in the past. They have very substantially reduced the number of agricultural labourers in employment throughout the country.

Mr. Corish

What was the object of the proposal when it was first passed?

General Mulcahy

I am discussing the present situation. We are discussing a measure that proposes to give the farmers the assistance of their children at farm work during the springtime and the harvest time.

Mr. Donnelly

Must this question be discussed on every Bill that is introduced into the Dáil? Are we not getting the arguments that General Mulcahy is now using on every item of legislation introduced here?

General Mulcahy

It turns up at the fireside and the table in every house in the country every day. It turns up in every field and every house.

Mr. MacEntee

That is a carefully rehearsed impromptu.

General Mulcahy

I hope the Minister is aware that there are people rehearsing what should be done in the country to improve the situation. However, I think this is a most hypocritical discussion——

Deputies

Hear, hear.

General Mulcahy

——as between the two heavenly twin Parties that have been sent here to the affliction, not only of the farmers, but of the whole country.

Mr. Donnelly

What has this got to do with the school-leaving age? All these arguments of the Deputy are irrelevant.

General Mulcahy

It is not a question of the school-leaving age.

Mr. Donnelly

What is it?

General Mulcahy

It is a question of allowing to stand for another period up to 1941—the period at which some people believe the economic war will have come to an end—the facilities by which at certain periods of the year farmers' children of certain ages may remain at home from school to help their parents with their farm work.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Donnelly is a little dull to-day.

General Mulcahy

The young people may not be of much assistance to the farmer, but he has had that assistance in the past and it should not now be withdrawn from him. We want to see our people relieved from slave labour. We want to see adult labour in all employment, whether agricultural or otherwise, but I submit that until the members both of the Labour Party and the Government Party examine their consciences with regard to the present condition of the farmer, whatever assistance can be provided by his children we should grant him. I make the additional point that if it is laborious for children to work on a farm, it may be as well for them to have hard labour in their youth, because if the policies that are being pursued now are continued for any length of time, they are bound to have hard labour when they grow up.

Mr. Corry

I am rather surprised at Deputy Mulcahy making the admission that the farmers were so badly off in his period of office that this proposal had to be introduced here.

General Mulcahy

They had £15,000,000 of an income then that they have not got now.

Mr. Corry

You know as much about farming as I do about your job, and that is very little. The position of the farmer was so bad when Deputy Mulcahy's Party were in office that this proposal had to be introduced in order that children might be allowed to remain from school to help the farmer to carry on his work. Deputy Mulcahy laments the reduction of the wages of agricultural labourers all over the country. Deputy Mulcahy will be glad to learn that position is changed and that the particular campaign that was initiated by his colleagues down the country to reduce the wages of agricultural labourers has been defeated.

An Ceann Comhairle

The campaign, real or alleged has nothing to do with the Bill. The Deputy must give way to the Chair. What I said was that the conditions of agricultural labourers throughout the country could not be debated on this measure. Deputy Mulcahy made reference to the condition of the farmers and their need for having the services of their children on the farm. That was quite in order but the Chair wanted to prevent, and will prevent, a discussion of the economic condition of the agricultural community. The policy of the last Government or its effects are not relevant to this Bill.

Mr. Corry

I entirely agree with you, A Chinn Comhairle, that the reduction of the wages of agricultural labourers is not relevant to this debate but Deputy Mulcahy referred to it and I was only replying to him. I was just saying how this particular campaign——

An Ceann Comhairle

It is not relevant to the debate.

Mr. Corry

When Deputy Mulcahy comes along to tell us about the condition of the farmers who have to do these things, he ought to remember that it is very unbecoming of a Deputy who endeavoured in this House recently to give to those unfortunate farmers, of whom he speaks, the enormous price of 1½d. per gallon for milk, when he came in here and voted——

An Ceann Comhairle

How the Deputy voted on other measures is not relevant. When a matter is ruled out of order by the Chair, the Deputy must not again refer to it or he will have to resume his seat.

Mr. Corry

I do not wish to refer to the matter further. I would not have stood up at all but for the statements made by Deputy Mulcahy, which are untrue. I think Deputy Mulcahy should be as aware of the situation in the country as anybody else. He should know there are particular periods in the year when farmers need assistance on their holdings, in connection with the thinning of turnips for example, and particularly at harvest time. The few shillings earned in those periods by young lads, who would be free from school for a week or a fortnight, are very welcome in the agricultural labourer's household. Deputy Mulcahy, apparently, does not consider that side of it. I am prepared to admit that we have not bettered the position of agricultural labourers to such an extraordinary extent as would enable us to get rid of this particular benefit.

General Mulcahy

That is very nicely put.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Mulcahy should remember all these things when next he is professing to give the views of the Ballineen farmers. We are told that, for their part, they are not going to work any more on the land and, in regard to the payment of rates, they will wait till John Brown comes.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is nothing here about John Brown's attendance at school.

Mr. Belton

It might not be a bad idea to send John Brown to school.

Mr. Corry

I think the Deputies opposite would benefit by his education.

Mr. MacEntee

He has taught them a thing or two.

General Mulcahy

That is just what I was going to suggest—and the Minister knows it well. He taught the people a lot. We see the results of that education.

Mr. Corry

He taught the Deputies over there how to pay.

Mr. Dillon

He taught a lot of our neighbours to be grabbers and bailiffs, and some of them did not want much teaching.

Mr. Corry

Now, to get back to what we were dealing with. I realise the necessity at particular periods of the year to allow young lads to remain from school for nine or ten days to do work on the land. The money they earn is very welcome in the households of the unfortunate farm labourers who had their wages cut by five shillings or six shillings a week for voting at the last General Election against the Deputies opposite.

General Mulcahy

Nearly true.

Mr. Bennett

I hardly see the point of the Labour Party's objection to the retention of this particular privilege. The Labour Party ought to be well aware that if this privilege is not continued it will not put any great number of people into employment on the land. That, I assume, is the motive underlying the objection by Deputy Keyes and the Labour Party to this measure; they anticipate if they carry their way that some additional employment may be given on the land. I do not think, if the Minister were to accept the Labour Party's contention, that the extra employment would amount to much.

Mr. Keyes

I merely spoke of children being kept in their proper place. I do not want my views to be twisted.

Mr. Bennett

I thought at one time that the Deputy referred to the matter of employment. He did refer to the point he made now, and I will come to that later. In the main, the farmers that this will apply to are the very small farmers who, in nine cases out of ten, were not employers of outside labour. They are the types of farmers who at times have to avail of the help of their wives when harvesting their crops. Their wives look forward to the day when the children will be sufficiently grown up to relieve them of the necessity of working on the land. In many cases for a number of years the wives of the small farmers have to assume those duties. I think every Deputy knows that there are numbers of small farmers who can only carry on with the help of their wives and in the course of time the grown-up children relieve their mothers. These small farmers are as anxious as any other section of the community that their children should be educated; they are perhaps as anxious as any Labour Deputy that their children should be educated and they are prepared to sacrifice as much as other sections of the community in order to have their children educated. It is only when necessity drives them that they will avail of the privilege the Minister proposes here to provide.

Taking the matter from another aspect, there is an educational value for farmers' children in performing light work on the farm. Most of them will have to assume the occupation of farming at a later stage. Some, perhaps, will have to become farm labourers, because they all will not have farms, and an early education in farming subjects is perhaps as essential as the education derived in the schools. Deputy Keyes says that this particular form of education should be confined to the period when the children are on holidays. I assume that the farmers' children deserve a holiday as well as other children. The school holiday season might not always coincide with the particular season when a small farmer would require his children to do the work on the land. Deputy Corry referred to the thinning of turnips. So far as I know, the thinning of turnips does not fall in with the school holiday period, but it is a type of work that boys and girls of 12 and 13 years might easily do without straining their physical powers or in any way injuring themselves. The services of the children are a great help to the farmer. I see no force in the objection to this privilege.

The Minister said that this was necessary five and six years ago; it was necessary for the reason that the small farmer was not an employer of labour and at certain times he needed the help of his children. It is necessary now for the very same reason. Indeed, it is more necessary now, because, as the Minister admitted, there are numbers of farmers who were employers of labour but who are now placed in the same position as the smaller farmers and they are no longer employers of labour because they cannot afford it. I do not think there is any force whatsoever in the Labour Party's objection to the retention of this privilege in respect of the farmers' children and I think the House will agree with the Minister's proposal.

Mr. Dillon

The Labour Party is in a very unenviable position, because it is getting hung with the rope of its own record. The Socialist Party in this country since this Parliament sat has consistently supported the Government; they have supported the Government in every burden the Government has put on the agricultural community. Then they adjourn from this House and posture as the Socialist Party in this country fighting for the Workers' Republic and control of the means of production. Now let them be known for what they are. The Socialist Party, I am glad to think, represents a miserable minority of the working people of this country and they come in here, with shameless audacity, to complain of the inevitable consequences of what they have done. Free education in this country is a social service and it was made compulsorily available to every child in this country by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government some years ago. That Government laid down the principle that it did not stand for revolutionary change because it believed that the benefits that might accrue from revolutionary changes would be far out-weighed by the difficulties that would be created. Acting with common prudence, they introduced a new and very remarkable social service in compulsory education, not voluntary education, for the children of every man and woman in the country and they very prudently said: "We do not hope to carry this into 100 per cent. effect without a transitional period. Therefore we provide that in this transitional period the farmers will accustom themselves gradually to the prospect of doing without the labour that they depended upon in the past from their juvenile children." They also said that with the increasing prosperity which the agricultural community was entitled to expect and contemplating the prospects in the country, they were satisfied that at the end of five years the change would involve the agricultural community in no unbearable financial burden through having to get labour elsewhere and let their children free to pursue their studies. Then Fianna Fáil emerged and, with the help of the Socialist Party in this House, they smashed all the prospects of financial improvement that the agricultural community looked for. They reduced the rural community to the condition in which it finds itself at the present time when the income of the farmers to whose children this Bill will apply has been reduced by £25,000,000 sterling per annum. I remember warning the Socialist Party of this fact—that you cannot cripple the agricultural community without destroying the social services. I remember warning them that the first thing they would see emerging from the economic policy of the Government would be that they would have to retrench on the social services.

An Ceann Comhairle

This Bill is not concerned with retrenchment on social services.

Mr. Dillon

My submission is that compulsory education is a social service and that this Bill is part of the system in which the social services are liable to become bankrupt because of the action of the Government.

An Ceann Comhairle

The matter before the House is merely the continuation of one section of an Act. Even if it were an amending Bill, which strictly it is not, the main Act could only be debated in so far as affected by the amending Bill. As the Minister has stated, this is a continuation of a section regarding the obligation to attend school and exempting children under certain conditions. It certainly is travelling widely to contend that in this debate Deputies may discuss the whole social system and the consequences of the Government policy on social conditions.

Mr. Dillon

It appeared to me to be a very pertinent argument which would recommend itself to you, sir.

Mr. Donnelly

Are there more records than one for the gramophone?

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Donnelly evidently does not like my argument.

General Mulcahy

What is Deputy Donnelly's "record"?

Mr. Dillon

When the Cumann na nGaedheal Government brought in this Act about compulsory education they indicated that the agricultural community must advance in prosperity before they could afford this change. First they must accustom themselves to it, and in the second place they must advance in their financial circumstances to justify their hiring labourers to do the work which they had expected their children to do in the past. My suggestion is that when you provide free education for the children of the poor, when you say: "We are determined the children should get this education," you are providing a valuable social service, and my submission is that this is part of the system which the Government has to make it possible for them to pile on burdens to the agricultural community. One of the essential procedures in that is to relieve some part of the burden that the agricultural community now bears. The social services are part of the burden. The farmer ordinarily contributes to the social services by paying men to do his work while his children get free education; they contribute to the rates, and they contribute their share to taxation.

Mr. MacEntee

What has this to do with the section?

Mr. Dillon

I am making a submission to the Chair, and I think I can do that without the Minister's assistance.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair is patiently waiting for the conclusion of the Deputy's submission.

Mr. Dillon

The farmers make these various contributions. But the Ministers have deliberately proceeded on a policy which is reducing the farmers' income considerably.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am quite positive that the Deputy's argument is not relevant to this Bill.

Mr. Dillon

Very well. I suggest to the Socialist Party that the reason the Minister for Education has been coerced to introduce this Bill is that the people are now so poor that they are not able to pay the labourers who would ordinarily do this work, and we are going back five years in the progress that was made towards the development of the social services in this country. The Chair has ruled that we may not examine——

Mr. MacEntee

It makes no difference to Deputy Dillon.

Mr. Dillon

——a similar difference in relation to all other social services. However, they will be provided with an opportunity for doing that hereafter. I want to ask Deputy Donnelly to bear in mind this fact: that this is a social service, and is being reduced by the Fianna Fáil Government because the Socialist Party helped the Fianna Fáil Party to break the farmers on whom this service rests. I invite the Socialist Party to remember that so long as they continue to support Fianna Fáil in the policy they are at present pursuing, the more will they have to protest against the disappearance of the social services that have been built up in this country. I urge on the Socialist Party to make up their minds which end of the stick they want. Fianna Fáil at last has made up its mind that it wants to trample the farmers into the dust, and it makes no disguise of that. The Socialist Party wants to pretend to be a champion of the farmer and the agricultural labourer, and it wants at the same time to place burdens on their backs which they know they cannot bear. Let them at least be honest and come out and tell us what they really do stand for. When we know that, we will be better able to judge of the honesty of the representations they are at present making. I think this amendment is a deplorable retrogression. I think it is equally deplorable that the farmers are unable to pay a fair wage to labourers to do this work. I think it is detestable that the place of those children will be taken by agricultural labourers who will receive 8/- a week for their work. But I think it is inevitable. I think it is nothing but fraud to suggest that this consequence of Fianna Fáil's policy is avoidable. It is absolutely unavoidable, and, if we go on as we are going at present, this is going to happen to every other social service in the country. Let this be a warning to the Socialist Party and to the Fianna Fáil Party of where they are drifting. Let them realise that we ought to restore such a measure of prosperity in the country as will make it possible for the children of the poor to get at least a decent primary education, without having to go out and slave in the fields when they ought to be at their school books.

Mr. MacEntee

I presume, after that speech, the Deputy is going to vote against the Bill?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister to conclude.

Mr. MacEntee

Or are we having an example of Cumann na nGaedheal hypocrisy now?

Mr. Derrig

I think, as my colleague points out, that probably if those sub-sections were not re-enacted we would have had an even more fiery speech from Deputy Dillon. Had we allowed the sub-section to lapse, and the position to arise that farmers who had been accustomed for the past ten years to get the benefit of this concession which enabled them to keep their children home from school to assist them on the land for ten days at those two periods of the year, spring and harvest; had we allowed it to become the position that they would find themselves in the grip of the enforcing authority for violating the School Attendance Act, I am sure that the Deputy would positively shiver with indignation. His rhetoric would certainly outpace even what we have heard to-day. The fact is that the Bill is really a very small Bill, and I would suggest that if the Deputy wants to raise any general question about education or any other social service he will have ample opportunities of doing so. He should not take advantage of a small Bill of this nature to pretend that there is some deplorable retrogression on the part of the Government. There is no deplorable retrogression. The fact is that I am quite satisfied with the way in which those sections have worked out. I have shown the House that a very large number—the vast majority—of the farmers who could have kept their children from school, who could have taken advantage of those sub-sections, have not done so. The facilities are there, and it is absolute ráiméis for Deputy Dillon to pretend that this is retrogression in so far as rural education is concerned. The exceedingly high record of attendance in the rural areas, and the fact that since the School Attendance Act was passed the figures showing the attendance in the higher classes in the national schools— which were exceedingly low before that Act was put into operation—have increased, show that rural education is going ahead. We have more children in the upper classes of our schools getting the benefit of the entire period for which they should attend primary schools, and they are also attending fairly regularly. I do not think anybody can question that.

No new points have been raised in opposition to this measure. All the arguments brought forward by Deputy Keyes were brought forward when the original Bill was under discussion. It was agreed on that occasion—even by the representative of the Labour Party at the time, who was specially interested in this matter—that the farming community had a strong case, and that they should be given this concession. The case, I think it will be admitted, is at least as strong now. In view of the fact that there have not been any serious effects on education, and that the farming community has taken advantage of their opportunity, induces me to believe that it is good policy and wise policy to continue the concession for at least another period of five years. The Deputy said that the work on which the children were engaged when they were kept from school under those sub-sections was often very unsuitable. I do not think we need doubt that the parents will treat their children properly in this regard, and that they are not going to ask them to do the same kind of work as they would ask agricultural labourers to do. They ask them to help out with the lighter duties during the spring and harvest when, as has been pointed out by Deputy Bennett, it is necessary that the work should be done in good time: when weather fluctuations often intervene, and the farmer cannot wait over even until the week-end, let alone until the vacation period, to get the work done. Deputy Keyes referred to the question of parental responsibility. Of course I should like, and I have often said that I should like, to see the school attendance figures in this country as good as they are in Scotland. They are not as good. In Scotland they can reach a figure of 90 per cent.; here we can reach a figure of 84 per cent. But in view of the fact that we have probably a very much larger proportion of our children in small rural schools, I think that our figures are probably very satisfactory in all the circumstances. I do not think there is any lack of responsibility on the part of the parents. I think that the figures in regard to all branches of our educational system show that the parents want to do their very best for the children, and that the rural parents, if anything, are more anxious. The poorer people are, the more anxious they are to get the best possible education for their children.

With regard to the School Attendance Act in general, the Deputy says that the Department of Education seems to be quite satisfied with the present state of affairs, and he referred to a memorandum presented to the Department of Education last year. So far as I remember, that memorandum, while expressing dissatisfaction with the Act, admitted that the Act in itself covered the ground fairly well. What was really defective in their opinion was the administration. Now there must be definite exemptions given under any School Attendance Act in cases of special necessity. It may be domestic necessity or it may be some other reason. There must be some loophole by which parents can urge special necessity to keep their children at home from school. It rests with the district justices and not with me to see that a fair and proper interpretation—and I think that has been generally given—is given to those sections which permit parents to keep their children from school in certain circumstances. Certainly no case has been made to me to show that the Act should be amended or that there is any necessity for amending it. I think everybody is agreed that the Act has worked out very satisfactorily, largely owing to the general and worthy cooperation of the people themselves.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 65; Níl, 4.

Tá

• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Belton, Patrick.
• Bennett, George Cecil.
• Blaney, Neal.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Bourke, Daniel.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Browne, William Frazer.
• Burke, James Michael.
• Concannon, Helena.
• Corbett, Edmond.
• Corry, Martin John.
• Crowley, Timothy.
• Daly, Denis.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
• Doherty, Hugh.
• Dolan, James Nicholas.
• Donnelly, Eamon.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Goulding, John.
• Jordan, Stephen.
• Keating, John.
• Keely, Séamus P.
• Kelly, James Patrick.
• Kelly, Thomas.
• Kilroy, Michael.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• Lynch, Finian.
• Lynch, James B.
• MacDermot, Frank.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• MacEoin, Seán.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Maguire, Conor Alexander.
• Moane, Edward.
• Moore, Seáamus.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• O'Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Dowd, Patrick.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Reilly, John Joseph.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Pearse, Margaret Mary.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Ward, Francis C.

Níl

• Corish, Richard.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Norton, William.
• Pattison, James P.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Corish and Keyes.

Question declared carried.

Committee Stage to be taken on Wednesday, 19th February.

Mr. Derrig

If there is no objection I would like to ask the House to take all the remaining stages on Wednesday.