Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 23 May 1962

Vol. 195 No. 10

Committee on Finance. - Vóta 30—Oifig an Aire Oideachais.

Tairgim:

Go ndeonófar suim nach mó ná £346,600 chun slánaithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1963, le haghaidh Tuarastail agus Costais Oifig an Aire Oideachais agus Costais a bhaineann leis an gComhairle Oideachais.

Tá ins na naoi Vótaí go bhfuilimsa freagrach iontu £20,310,920. Is méadú é sin de £2,407,200 ar an soláthar don bhliain airgeadais roimhe seo. Tá £1,900,000 á chur ar fáil fé Vóta 9 (Oibreacha Poiblí agus Foirgintí) le haghaidh tithe scoile náisiúnta a thógáil, a mhéadú is a chóiriú. Dá réir sin, tá £22,210,920 á sholáthar ag an Stát sa bhliain airgeadais reatha i gcomhair na seirbhísí oideachais. Is ionann é sin agus 15 fén gcéad den iomlán le haghaidh na seirbhísí soláthair ar fad.

Ar an gcéad fhéachaint is mór an glam airgid suim ós cionn £22,000,000 le haghaidh sraith amháin seirbhísí ach nuair a chuimhnímid air gurab í an tsraith sheirbhísí sin an bonn ar a bhfuil gach iarracht atá a dhéanamh againn chun dul chun cinn a dhéanamh bunaithe, tá mé cinnte nach bhfuil aon duine in ár measc a cheapfadh go bhfuil an caiteachas sin iomarcach. Ina thaobh sin ba mhaith liom mo thuairim féin a luadh arís, sé sin, go gcaithfimid leanúint orainn do bheith ag méadú an tsoláthair i gcomhair oideachais agus déanamh dá réir go ceann roint bhliain sul a shroisfimid an pointe ag a mbeimid ábalta a rá go bhfuil córas oideachais againn atá ag freastal ar ár riachtanaisí go léir. Chun scéal goirid a dhéanamh de caithfimid breathnú ar airgead a sholáthraítear le haghaidh oideachais, ní mar chaiteachas, ach mar airgead a cuirtear amach ar ús.

Tráchtfaidh mé anois ar na Vótaí ar leith.

OIFIG AN AIRE OIDEACHAIS.

Séard atá sa Vóta so ná costaisí riaracháin na Roinne. An cúig chéad is sé mhíle déag, sé chéad púnt is méadú é de £69,200 ar an soláthar do 1961/62. Is as na harduithe tuarastail a cheadaíodh sa bhliain airgeadais roimhe seo a thagann an méadú sin ar fad beagnach. Is sa bhliain 1962/63 atá lán-éifeacht á thabhairt do na harduithe sin.

BUN-OIDEACHAS.

Sé dhá mhilliún déag, dhá chéad triocha is a naoi míle glan atá fén Vóta so, suim atá £1,068,350 níos mó ná an soláthar le haghaidh 1961/62 agus meastachán breise de £400,000 a thógaint san áireamh. An chuid is mó den mhéadú sin, baineann sé leis na harduithe tuarastail a fuair na múinteoirí de thoradh cúrsaí idirréitigh agus eadrána. Tagann den mhéadú tuarastail méadú i gcostaisí pinsin chomh maith.

Sa scoil-bhliain darbh críoch an 30ú Meitheamh, 1961, bhí 14,032 fostaithe ins na scoileanna náisiúnta i gcomparáid le 13,866 sa bhliain roimhe sin. Cúig chéad is trí mhíle, dhá chéad is ochtar déag páistí a bhí ar rollaí na scoileanna ar an 30ú Meitheamh, 1961. Titim 3,145 é sin ar an líon a bhí ar na rollaí ar an dáta céanna i 1960. An chúis atá leis an dtitim sin ná go bhfuilimid ag imeacht anois ó iarsmaí an arduithe neamh-ghnáthaigh a tharla ar na rátaí pósta agus ar na rátaí beireatais ins na blianta a tháinig go díreach tar eis an cogadh.

Ó thaobh cóiríocht scoile a chur ar fáil do na páistí sin ní foláir foirgintí a thógaint do thuairim is sé mhíle páiste (6,000) gach bliain chun freastal ar an ngnáth-dhiomailt, sé sin chun an status quo a choimeád. Nuair adeirim libh gur cuireadh cóiríocht ar fáil do níos mó ná trí mhíle déag páistí (13,000) tuigfidh sibh a mhéid is atá na riaráistí tógála á nglanadh. I leith scéimeanna tógála fé láthair is mar seo atá an scéal. Tá céad seasca is ceathair de mhór scéimeanna tógála ag dul ar aghaidh. Soláthróidh siad sin cóiríocht do níos mó ná 18,500. Cé go bhféadfaí a rá gur scéal ana-shásúil é sin tá oiread san riaráistí le glanadh go bhfuil pleananna eile á mbreithniú agam go bhfuil mé ag súil go dtiocfaidh díobh go gcuirfear go mór leis an ráta bliantúil tógála.

Fadhbh i leith na scoileanna náisiúnta atá níos tábhachtaí ná soláthar foirgintí oiriúnacha is ea fadhbh na foirne. Chuir sé an-áthas orm anuraidh an ceathrú feabhsú foirne a tharla laistigh de thréimhse trí bhlian d'fhógairt. An chaoi ina bhfuil an scéal anois ná go bhfuilimid ag tréineáil timpal céad go leith múinteoir gach bhliain de bhreis ar ár ngnáthriachtanasaí agus go leanfar do bheith ag úsáid na múinteoirí bhreise sin chun an coibhneas idir daltaí agus múinteoirí d'fheabhsú. Méadófar ar an ráta feabhsaithe nuair a chuirfear na pleananna tógála do Choláiste Pádraig i bhfeidhm. Idir an dá linn tá áthas orm arís i mbliana é bheith le fógairt agam go bhfuil socair laghdú de deich n-aonaid a dhéanamh ar an líon páistí ar rollaí a bheidh riachtanach chun an tríú múinteoir cúnta agus chun an seachtú agus gach múinteoir cúnta dá éis sin a cheapadh. Bhéarfaidh sé seo faoiseamh san áit is mó a bhfuil gá leis—ins na scoileanna móra, áit a mbíonn na ranganna is mó de ghnáth.

Anuraidh dheineas tagairt don soláthar atá déanta le blianta beaga anuas chun oideachas a thabhairt do pháistí go bhfuil máchail coirp nó máchail intinne orthu. Tagraim dó arís i mbliana de bhrí gur fadhb é go bhfuil níos mó suime á chur ag an bpobal ann i gcónaí. Dá bhrí sin measaim nár mhiste roint mion-fhíricí bhreise ina thaobh a thabhairt. Chuala sibh go léir tagairt do 10 fén gcéad mar fhigiúr a léiríonn a mhéid atá éalang mheabhrach ar pháistí na tíre. Ní luaitear, de ghnáth, ámh, go bhfuil sa bhfigiúir sin 8 fén gcéad nach bhfuil cearr leo ach go bhfuilid lag agus mall ó thaobh meabhrach de. Fágann san nach bhfuil ach 2 fén gcéad go bhféadfaí a rá fúthu go bhfuil éalang mheabhrach orthu do réir an ghnáthchaighdeáin a leantar nuair a bhíonn a leithéid á thomhas.

Níl d'fhadhbh ag baint leis na páistí atá lag agus mall ach an líon ins na gnáth-ranganna do laghdú go dtí pointe a chuirfidh ar chumas na múinteoirí aire speisialta a thabhairt do na páistí sin. Ní thagann sé i gceist scoileanna ná ranganna speisialta do chur ar fáil. Go firinneach glactar leis i gcoitinne anois gur fearr do pháistí dá leithéid bheith ins na gnáthranganna fhaid atá an múinteoir i riocht aire speisialta a thabhairt dóibh. Na bearta a'aá déanta againn cheana féin chun an coibhneas idir múinteoirí agus páistí d'fheabhsú agus na beartais atá againn ina leith sin don am atá ag teacht, cinnteoidh siad san go sroisfimid laistigh d'am réasúnta an aidhm atá romhainn ó thaobh na bhfoirne ins na scoileanna.

Ó thaobh na scoileanna speisialta tá 37 scoileanna dá lei héid ann fé láthair. Tá ceithre chinn déag de na scoileanna san in oispidéil éagsúla, dhá cheann déag diobh le haghaidh páistí go bhfuil éalang mheabhrach orthu, trí chinn do na Bodhair, dhá cheann do na Daill, trí chinn le haghaidh páìstí go bhfuil Pairilis Cheirbreach orthu, ceann do phaistí atá sochorraithe, ceann do Thiteamaigh agus ceann do pháistí a raibh polio orthu.

Anuraidh tharla dhá rud i leith na scoileanna so nár mhiste tagaìrt speisialta a dhéanamh dóibh. An chéad rud ná gur chríochnaigh ceathrar múinteoirí déag cúrsa speisialta tréineála a chuireadh ar bun le haghaidh múinteoirí a bheadh ag teagasc ins na scoileanna i gcomhair páistí lag-intinneacha. An tarna rud ná gur cuireadh cúigear múinteoirí go dtí cúrsa speisialta i gColáiste na hIolscoile, Baile Átha Cliath, agus gur chuaigh siad ina dhiaidh isteach i ndá ionad i mBaile Átha Cliath agus i gceann i gCorcaigh le haghaidh páistí nach bhfuil bodhar ar fad ach go bhfuil an éisteacht go holc acu.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

D'íoc an Roinn as costas na bhfearaistí speisialta a bhí ag teastáil do na hionaid sin chomh maith leis an gcostas a ghaibh leis na seomraí a chur in oiriúint ó thaobh cúrsaí fuaime dhe. Ina theannta san d'íoc an Roinn tuarastal na múinteoirí le linn dóibh bheith san Iolscoil, a dtáillí Iolscoile, agus tuarastal na n-ionadaithe a bhí fostaithe acu.

Tá súil agam go dtabharfar na fígiúirí agus na fíricí sin fé ndear acu san adeireann nach bhfuilimid ag déanamh aon rud chun oideachas a thabhairt dóibh sin go bhfuil máchail orthu. Níor mhaith liom leis ligint don ócáid seo dul thart gan moladh ar leith a thabhairt don obair iontach atá á dhéanamh ag stiúrthóirí agus ag múinteoirí na scoileanna speisialta so. Níor leor aon fhocla chun cur síos a dhéanamh ar a ndíogras agus a ndúthracht.

MEANOIDEACHAS.

Trí mhilliún, céad is daichead míle, seacht gcéad is caoga púnt an t-iomlán glan atá á sholáthar le haghaidh meánoideachais, suim atá timpal is £280,000 níos mó ná soláthar na bliana airgeadais seo caite. Siad na príomhnithe is cúis leis an méadú sin ná deontais caipitíochta agus deontais saotharlainne do na scoileanna, tuarastail múinteoirí agus scoláireachtaí breise le haghaidh daltaí na Gaeltachta.

Ins an scoilbhliain seo, tá thar 80,000 dalta ar rollaí na meánscoileanna aitheanta. Ocht mbliana déag ó shoin—ins an bhliain 1943-44—ní raibh líon na ndaltaí sna meánscoileanna ach go díreach, thart ar leath an fhigiúir sin. I gcaitheamh na n-ocht mbliana déag sin méadaíodh ar líon na meánscoileanna ó 377 go 542, comhartha é sin nach do na liomatáistí cathrach amháin a bhí meánscolaíocht á cur ar fáil ach go raibh sí i rith na tréimhse sin á leathadh go dtí gach cuid den tír. I rith na dtrí bliana seo caite tá líon na ndaltaí ag fás de réir 3,600 sa bhliain agus má leanann an ráta fáis sin, beidh thar 100,000 dalta sna meánscoileanna faoi an mbliain 1970.

An méadú de dhaichead is £46,200 ar sholáthar na bliana airgeadais, 1961-62, le haghaidh deontas, idir dheontais caipitíochta agus deontais do na scoileanna A agus do na scoileanna dátheangacha, léiríonn an méadú sin cé chomh mór is atá an líon daltaí aitheanta ag dul i méid.

Chun freastal ar na daltaí sin teastaíonn tuilleadh múinteoirí agus ins an scoilbhliain seo sé an líon muinteoirí atá ag fáil breistuarastail ná 3,381 i gcomparáid le 3,234 ins an mbliain 1960-61. Ina theannta sin, tá 204 mhúinteoir ag fáil an fhorliúntais speisialta de £200 le haghaidh múinteoirí atá ag fáil breistuarastail ná eadh i gcríoch ón chéad lá de Lúnasa seo caite. Mar sin, tá beagnach 3,600 múinteoir ag fáil tuarastail go díreach ón Roinn ins an scoilbhliain seo. Ins an bhliain 1930-31 bhí an líon múinteoirí ina thrian, go hathchomair, den fhigiúir sin—1209 múinteoir.

An soláthar de £1,950,000 le haghaidh breistuarastail agus atá á thaispeáint faoi Fhó-mhírcheann B.1, deineadh amach é sul ar tháinig na méaduithe deireannacha ar na scálaí tuarastail i bhfeidhm. Na méaduithe sin, gur tugadh in éifeacht iad ón chéad lá de mhí na Samhna, 1961, tháinig siad den Rialtas do ghlacadh le Tuarascáil an Bhoird Eadrána le haghaidh Meánmhúinteoirí agus meastar gurb é an soláthar breise a bheidh ag teastáil dá réir ins an bhliain airgeadais seo ná £390,000.

Ins an soláthar le haghaidh deontas saotharlainne fé Fhó-mhírcheann A.2 áirítear (a) £84,000 le haghaidh na ngnáthdeontas a íoctar as rangannaí Eolaíochta, Tís agus Adhmadóireachta, (b) £30,000 le haghaidh na scéime nua a cuireadh i bhfeidhm ins an scoil-bhliain reatha chun cabhrú le saotharlanna Eolaíochta a chur ar fáil. Faoi an scéim nua seo, gur dhein mé tagairt dé cur i bhfeidhm an bhliain seo caite, soláthraítear deontais chun cabhrú le gléasanna agus troscán a chur ar fáil le haghaidh saotharlainne oiriúnaí atá á tógáil (1) i dteach scoile nua, (2) i dteach scoile nach bhfuil Eolaíocht á teagasc ann cheana, (3) i dteach scoile ina bhfuil Eolaíocht á teagasc cheana ach ina bhfuil gá le cóiríocht bhreise chuige sin. Faoi an scéim seo, freisin, féadtar deontas a thabhairt i gcás ina mbeartaítear teagasc i mbrainsí breise den Eolaíocht a chur ar fáil.

Cé nach bhfuil sa taobh airgid den cheist ach ceann de na nithe a théann i gcionn ar an méid den Eolaíocht a mhúintear ins na meánscoileanna, sé mo thuairimse gur ní tabhachtach ina leith sin é. Lena chois sin, áit ar bith ina múintear Eolaíocht is inmhianaithe go mór go mbíonn cóiríocht shaotharlainne sách oiriúnach ar fáil inti sa tslí go bhféadann na daltaí an tairbhe is mó is féidir a bhaint as an teagasc. Ar ndóigh, féadtar saotharlanna deaghléasta a bheith ina mealladh do chéimithe san Eolaíochta a bheith ag smaoineamh ar an ngairm mhúinteoireachta mar shlí bheatha tharraingteach.

Pé scéal é, tá mé sásta go gcabhróidh an scéim nua seo go mór le cothú agus neartú an fháis atá le sonrú ar theagasc na hEolaíochta le tamall, ach go háirithe i gcaitheamh an dá bhliain seo chuaigh thart. Ba chóir go gcabhróidh sí, freisin, le caighdeán an teagaisc san Eolaíocht a choinneáil ar leibhéal ard.

Tá dianscrúdú ar siúl ag an Roinn i láthair na huaire ar an cheist ar fad a bhaineann leis na cúrsaí éagsúla Eolaíochta a chur in oiriúint do shaol na linne seo.

An fhaid is atátar ag fanacht ar pé athruithe go measfar iad bheith riachtanach, is féidir an teagasc a choinneáil suas chun dáta trí chúrsaí samhraidh. Ina thaobh sin d'fhéadfaí go ndealródh sé go bhfuil gearradh siar á dhéanamh i mbliana ar an soláthar le haghaidh cúrsaí den chineál sin. Ní mar sin atá an scéal, tá soláthar á dhéanamh i mbliana le haghaidh trí chúrsa do mhúinteoirí. Sé is cúis leis an titim sa soláthar airgid ó £2,350 go £600 i mbliana ná go raibh ar imeachtaí na bliana seo caite cigirí na Roinne agus roinnt mhúinteoirí a chur go dtí na Stáit Aontaithe ar chúrsaí nua-aimsire sa Mhatamaitic faoi choimirce Fiundúireacht Náisiúnta na hEolaíochta ins na Stáit Aontaithe. Ar ndóigh bhain cuid mhaith costais leis na cúrsaí sin, agus ba mhaith liom anseo mo mhórbhuíochas a ghabháil leis an bFiundúireacht as ucht gur sheas siad scar maith de chostas na gcúrsaí, cúrsaí a bhí an-úsáideach ar fad. Go deimhin, ní hé seo an chéad ócáid ar a raibh ábhar buíochais againn don Fhiundúireacht. Tráth ar tionóladh sa tír seo fé choimirce na hEagraíochta Idirnáisiúnta O.E.C.D. seimineár agus cúrsa a lean é ina dhiaidh sin ar theagasc na Ceimice, thug an Fhiundúireacht cabhair mhaith ó shaineolaithe ag an am sin freisin.

Tá fás sonrach tagaithe cheana ar líon na ndaltaí atá ag foghlaim na Fraincíse, mar shampla, ba é an líon dalta a bhí ag gabháil do chúrsaí na Meánteistiméireachta san ábhar sin sa bhliain 1960-61 ná 30,590, i gcomparáid le 27,787 an bhliain roimhe sin.

Sé an sásamh is mó a bhaineann leis an bhfás sin ná go dtaispeánann sé, acht an t-éileamh a bheith ann go bhfuil na scoileanna ullamh agus ábalta chun freastal air.

Is minic a thagann sé i mo cheann go mba chóir dúinn níos mó muiníne a bheith againn as cumas ár gcuid scoileanna. Tar éis an tsaoil thug siad fén Ghaeilge a chur ar aghaidh sna fichidí agus cén fáth mar sin nach dtabharfaidís sna seascaidí fén Fhraincís, an Ghearmáinis nó pé teanga eile a bheadh i gceist a chur ar aghaidh sa tslí chéanna.

Mar sin féin, ins an méid a bhaineann le teagasc teangacha Eorpacha tá cuid mhaith talaimh le déanamh fós ag na scoileanna buachaillí. Céim amháin ar aghaidh chun cabhrú le leathadh teagasc na dteangacha sin is ea an socrú a dhein an Roinn i rith na scoilbhliana seo go n-áireofar seirbhís áirithe teagaisc a thabharfar ar Mhór-Roinn na hEorpa chun críche breiseanna ar an scála breistuarastail.

Tá an cheist fé mhalartú múinteoirí pléite ag roinnt de na scoilchumainn liom agus i láthair na huaire tá an Roinn ag déanamh dianscrúduithe ar a mbaineann leis an gceist sin.

Is áthas liom a chur in iúl don Teach go bhfuil an Bhéaltriail Ghaeilge i scrúdú na hArdteistiméireachta ag dul ar aghaidh go sásúil. Níl amhras ar bith nágur chuir a tabhairt i gcríoch dhá bliain ó soin go mór leis an éileamh ar chleachtadh i labhairt na Gaeilge. Tá sé ró-luath fós le meas go cruinn cén méid feabhais atá tagaithe dá bharr ar líofacht na ndaltaí ach breithneofar an cheist sin go beacht tráth a mbíonn tuarascáil na Comhairle Oideachais ar Chlár na Meánscoile á scrúdú. Ag an bpointe seo ba mhaith liom mo fhíorbhuíochas a ghabháil leis an gCathaoirleach RóOirmhidneach agus le baill na Comhairle as ucht an méid dua agus ama a chaitheadar leis an obair throm a ghaibh le hullmhú a dtuarascála.

Sé an rud a dhéanfar anois i gcás na tuarascála ná í a chur fé bhráid na n-eagríocht éagsúil a bhfuil baint acu le cúrsaí oideachais lena dtuairimí a fháil. Nuair a bheidh na tuairimí sin faite breithneoidh an Roinn an tuarascáil ag féachaint do na tuairimí a gheofar amhlaidh. Sa deireadh is ar an Aire a thitfidh sé teacht ar bhreith i dtaobh na moltaí éagsúil a bheidh i gceist.

CÉARDOIDEACHAS.

Dá mhilliún, aon mhíle, trí chéad is nócha púnt an méid glan atá á iarraidh ins an bhliain airgeadais seo. Is méadú é sin de £337,530 ar an méid a soláthraíodh anuraidh.

Is fé fhó-mhírcheann B ar an liosta atá an tsuim caiteachais is mó, sé sin, an t-airgead i leith deontas bhliantiúl do Choistí Gairmoideachais. Sé an méid atá á soláthar lena n-aghaidh sin i 1962-63 ná £1,801,430. An méadú de thart ar £300,000, sé is cúis leis ar fad beagnach ná an Rialtas do ghlacadh le moladh an Bhoird Eadrána i dtaobh tuarastal múinteoirí. Sé is cúis leis an £6,000 de bhreis faoi fhó-mhírcheann C., Oiliúint Múinteoirí, ná an gá, mar gheall ar ardú costais, atá leis na deontais do na Coláistí Oiliúna Tís a mhéadú.

Dála an mhéanoideachais, tá an gairmoideachas freisin ag dul i méid go seasta. Críochnaíodh tógáil ocht gcinn de scoileanna nua ins an bhliain 1960-61, ceann níos mó ná mar a tógadh ins an bhliain 1959-60, agus mhéadaigh an tinreamh lánaimsire lae go dtí beagán thar 27,000. I gcomhcéim leis sin uilig tháinig méadú de 55 ar an líon múinteoirí lánaimsire agus méadú de 114 ar an líon múinteoirí páirtaimsire sa tslí go raibh ar fostú ins na scoileanna i mí Lúnasa seo caite, 1,661 de mhúinteoirí lan-aimsire agus 1,560 de mhúinteoirí páirtaimsire.

Mar a dúirt mé anuraidh tá an oiread sin gnéithe éagsúla den ghairmoideachas ann gur ar éigin is féidir ar ócáid mar seo cur síos a dhéanamh ar níos mó ná cúpla ceann acu. B'fhéidir gurb é an t-eolas is tábhachtaí is féidir liom a thabhairt díbh i mbliana ná go cuirfear Bille i láthair an Tí go luath chun cur ar chumas Coistí Gairmoideachais a gcuid ioncaim a mhéadú de réir mar is gá. Tá líon áirithe de Choistí ann an bhfuil a n-ioncam cheana ar an méid is mó is féidir dióbh a fháil, de reir dlí, ón Stát agus ó na rátaí. Go deimhin, b'éigean do chuid acu dul i bhfiacha sa Bhanc le freastal ar na glaonna atá orthu. Mar sin, féadtar a rá fén mBille úd "más maith, is mithid".

Tá tagairt déanta agam cheana do fhó-mhírcheann C, agus le linn dom mo shúil a chaitheamh ar an liosta de nithe a bhfuil soláthar déanta dóibh ag an Roinn, b'fhachthas dom narbh olc an liosta sin mar ghléas chun a chur in iúl cad atá á dhéanamh le feabhas a chur ar leibhéal an teagaisc sna gairmscoileanna. Léann an liosta mar leanas:

1. Cúrsa i mBanachas Tí agus Feisteas Tí: Is le haghaidh múinteoirí áirithe Tís an cúrsa sin;

2. Táiliúireacht: Tá an cúrsa sin le haghaidh múinteorí Tís;

3. Áiseanna Éistradharcacha: Arís tá a leithéad seo de chúrsa á chur ar fáil le haghaidh múinteoirí Tís.

4. Matamaitic: Is cuid den scéim an cúrsa sin chun caighdeán teagaisc na Matamaitice a ardú sna gairmscoileanna.

5. Modhanna Múinte san Ealaín: Tá an cúrsa sin le haghaidh timpal 50 múinteoir Ealaíne chomh maith le daoine atá ag gabháil do chúrsa oiliúna múinteoirí Ealaíne.

6. Teastas Timire Gaeilge: Sé cuspóir an chúrsa sin ná caoi a thabhairt do mhúinteoirí, a bhfuil céim ollscoile acu, chun na cáilíochtaí atá ag teastail le haghaidh theagasc na Gaeilge sna gairmscoileanna a bhaint amach.

7. Gaeilge: Athchúrsa é seo le haghaidh múinteoirí atá ar fostú cheana.

8. Dearadh Troscán: Is le haghaidh múinteoirí áirithe adhmadóireachta an cúrsa sin.

9. Áiseanna Éistradharcacha: Cúrsa le haghaidh múinteoirí nach múinteoirí Tís.

10. Bitheolaíocht Mhachaire: Cúrsa le haghaidh múinteoirí Tuatheolaíochta.

11. Tástáil agus Cúram Inneall Diesel: Le haghaidh múinteoirí Miotalóireachta an cúrsa sin.

12. Modhanna Múinte Tuatheolaíochta: Cúrsa gairid é sin i modhanna múinte chun a chur ar chumas céimithe in Eolaíocht Talmhaíochta iad féin a cháiliú mar mhúinteoirí Tuatheolaíochta.

13. Foirgnimh Feirme: Cuirfidh an cúrsa sin le eolas na múinteoirí foirgneolaíochta ar thógáil foirgneamh feirme, rud atá anois ina chuid thábhachtach dá gcuid oibre.

14 and 15. Teicneolaíocht Ceardlainne agus Teoiric an Táite. Tá an dá chúrsa seo á gcur le chéile mar gheall ar an gcosúlacht atá eatarthú agus iad a bheith le haghaidh an ghrúpa chéanna múinteoirí.

16. Dáileadh Miondíola: Le haghaidh múinteorí Tráchtála.

17. Luathscríbhínn agus Clóscribhínn: Tá dhá chuspóir ag an gcúrsa seo, sé sin, é a bheith mar réamhchúrsa le haghaidh scrúdú an Teastais Múinteora agus mar athchúrsa le haghaidh múinteoirí atá oilte cheana.

18. Bainisteoireacht Tí Lóistín: Tá an cúrsa sin á eagrú i gcomhar le Bord Fáilte.

19. Tógáil Bád: Tá an cúrsa sin freisin á eagrú i gcomhair le Bord Fáilte.

20. Teangacha Eorpacha: Tá an cúrsa ceithre sheachtain seo le haghaidh múinteoirí a bhfuil eolas réasúnta acu ar Fhraincis nóar Ghearmáinis acht go mbeadh tréimhse ghairid athnuachana ag teastáil uathu. Eagrófar na rangannaí ins an dá theanga sin sa tslí go mbeidh deis ag an ochtó múinteoir a bhfuiltear ag súil leo staidéar a dhéanamh ag cheann de na teangacha sin nó ar an dá cheann, i gcaitheamh an chúrsa. Cuirfear na cúrsaí sin ar fáil in

ionaid éagsúla, Baile Átha Cliath agus Contae Átha Cliath, Dún Laoghaire, Corcaigh, Pórtláirge, Cathair na Gaillimhe, Béal Átha an Rí, Loch Garman, sa tréimhse Iúil — Meán Fómhair seo chugainn.

Is comhartha na himeachtaí sin ar mheon bheaga ghníomhach, agus mar a dúirt mé i gcás na meánscoileanna, nuair a thagann i gceist an Margadh Coiteann nó aon ní eile a thástálfaidh ár gcumas agus ár réiteach, is féidir linn a bheith réasúnta cinnte nach gclisfidh ár scoileanna orainn, idir scoileanna náisiúnta, meánscoileanna agus gairmscoileanna.

Go dearfa, rachainn chomh fada lena rá, má bhíonn oibrithe oilte ag leibhéal ar bith ag teastáil ó thionscal agus má chuireann an tionscal in iúl go cinnte dearfa cén cinéal oibrithe oilte a bheidh ag teastáil uaidh; go dteaspeáinfidh na coistí gairmoideachais, ar aon nós na coistí a bhfuil scéimeanna móra fúthu, a gcumas chun cuidiú leis na hoibrithe sin a chur ar fáil.

Uaireanta tá sé curtha i leith na gceardscoileanna gur chlis orthu solá thar cuí a dhéanamh le haghaidh teicneoirí a oiliúint ach ar an láimh eile dhe sé an donas go gcloistear uaireanta eile é a rá go bhfuil ár sáithe teicneoirí againn. D'fhonn fírinne an scéil a aimsiú cuireadh coiste ar bun i mo Roinnse le déanaí ar a bhfuil ionadaithe ó na heagraíochtaí go léir a bhfuil baint acu leis an gnó seo. Táthar ag súil le go mbeidh an coiste seo ábalta a fháil amach, go hathchomhair ar a laghad, riachtanas cinnte an tionscail sa mhéid a bhaineann le teicneoirí agus ansin, más gá, go molfaidh sé cén gníomh is ceart a dhéanamh.

Ins an bhliain seo caite, ba é líon iomlán na bprintíseach a scaoileadh go páirtaimsire chun freastal ar chúrsaí sna ceardscoileanna ná 3,495. Is méadú é sin de 508 ar líon na bliana roimhe. Chun freastal ar an éileamh seo ar chúrsaí páirtaimsire, éileamh atá ag dul i méid i gcónaí, beidh gá le tuilleadh áiseanna a chur ar fáil sa réimse thábhachtach seo de cheardoideachas, agus mar gheall air sin is cúis áthais dom é a bheith ar mo chumas tagairt a dhéanamh don bhloc nua a cuireadh leis an gColáiste Teicneolaíochta Sráid Bholtúin agus gur osclaíodh í an lá faoi dheireadh.

Sul a mbeidh deireadh ráite agam faoi na scoileanna náisiúnta, na meánscoileanna agus na gairmscoileanna, ba mhaith liom focal speisialta molta a rá. Tá an moladh sin ag dul d'fhurmhór mór na n-údarás áitiúil as ucht a bhfuil déanta acu chun leas a bhaint, chomh hiomlán sin, as an Acht Scoláireachta, 1961. Dá thoradh sin sé an tslíina mbeidh an scéal ins an scoilbhlain atá romhainn ná go mbeidh an méid airgid la haghaidh scoláireachtaí iar-bhunscoile thar a thí oiread níos mó ná an méid a soláthraíodh anuraidh. Beidh an t-airgead le haghaidh scoláireachtaí Iolscoile thar a bheith dúbalta. Ba thoradh rímhaith é sin ar an chéad iarracht ariamh a dhein an Stát ar bhonn fhoirleitheadúil le cabhair a thabhairt chun scoláireachtaí.

EOLAÍOCHT AGUS EALAÍN.

Dhá chéad, ochtó is seacht míle, aon chéad is seachtó punt an méid glan atá á soláthar sa Vóta seo. Is méadú é sin de £38,490 ar sholáthar na bliana seo caite.

Sé an ceann is mó de na méaduithe go léir ins an Vóta seo ná an méadú a bhaineas le caiteachas ar thuarastail, pá agus liúntais ins na hInstitiúidí Eolaíochta agus Ealaíne. Ceithre mhíle dhéag, ceithre chéad is seacht bpunt déag is iomlán don mhéadú sin. Maidir leis an bhfuíghleach, £24,073, tá £3,950 de faoi Fó-mhírcheann B.3, Scoláireachtaí Ollscoile, agus tá méadú maith freisin, £8,500 ar na deontais le haghaidh Coláistí Samhraidh a chuireann cúrsaí Gaeilge ar fáil; tá méadú de £2,000 ag gabháil don Mhúsaem le haghaidh fearaistí agus ábhar, agus méadú de £1,000 an ceann ag dul don Acadamh Ríoga Ceoil agus do Chumann Míoleolaíochta na hÉireann. Tá méaduithe beaga ar na deontais dóibh seo leanas: Drámaí Gaeilge a chur ar fáil in Amharclainn na Mainistreach, Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, Tréimhseacháin i nGaeilge, an Coimisiún Béaloideasa agus Institiúid Náisiúnta na Scannán.

Fén bhFó-mhírcheann nua, C.9, tá deontas i gcabhair suas go dtí £2,000 á sholáthar le haghaidh Coláiste na n-Oibrithe Caitliceach i dtreo is go mbeidh ar chumas na hinstitiúide fiúntaí sin easnamh airgid bliantúil a sheachaint.

SCOILEANNA CEARTÚCHÁIN AGUS SAOTHAIR

Tá laghdú arís i mbliana ar iomlán an tsoláthair sa Vóta seo. Dhá chéad, triocha is seacht míle, cúig chéad is dachad punt an méid glan atá á iarraidh. Is laghdú de £6,640 ar mhéid na bliana seo caite é sin.

Ins na 48 scoileanna saothair bhí 1,873 chailín agus 1,638 buachaill ag deireadh na bliana 1961, i gcomparáid le 1,965 cailíní agus 1,765 buachaill ag deireadh na bliana 1960. Ins an Scoil Ceartúcháin Buachaillí, bhí 165 buachaill ag deireadh na bliana 1961, i gcomparáid le 183 an bhliain roimhe sin. Ins an dá Scoil Ceartúcháin Cailíní is beag athrú a bhí ar an líon bheag atá fé choimeád iontu.

Cuireadh moill mhór ar an bpleanáil le haghaidh an ionaid nua forchoimeádtha mar gheall ar dheacrachtaí a bhain le suíomh nua a fháil. Is ábhar áthais dom anois é a bheith ar mo chumas a rá go bhfuil suíomh oiriúnach faite ag Fionnglas, agus go bhfuiltear ag súil le tús a chur leis an obair thógála ar an dá luathas. Sé cuspóir an ionaid nua seo ná freastal ar an mbuachaill nach ndeachaidh ach beagán ar strae agus nach bhfuil ach tréimhse ghairid ceartúcháin ag teastáil chun é a chur ar bhóthar a leasa.

INSTITIÚD ÁRD-LÉINN BHAILE ÁTHA CLIATH.

An tsuim atá á lorg £92,510 is méadú é sin de £8,630. Baineann an méadú san ar fad leis na hárdaithe tuarastail ba ghá a thabhairt chun a leibhéal do choimeád ar aon dul leis na hárdaithe tuarastail ins na hiolscoileanna.

IOLSCOILEANNA AGUS COLÁISTÍ.

An méid ghlan atá ag teastáil ná £1,780,830. Suim chaipitil de £602,000 a dheineann furmhór an mhéaduithe de £710,700. Beidh £520,000 den tsuim chaipitil ag teastáil i mbliana le haghaidh tógáil an fhoirgnimh nua Eolaíochta do Choláiste na hIolscoile, Baile Átha Cliath. Séard atá sa bhfoirgneamh so ná an chéad chéim in aistriú an Choláiste, rud ar ghlac Dáil Éireann i bprionsabal leis dhá bhliain ó shoin. Táthar ag súil go gcríochnófar cuid na Fisice agus na Ceimice den fhoirgneamh um Mí Iúil, 1964, agus an chuid eile an bhliain ina dhiaidh sin sa chaoi go bhféadfaí, i Mí Deireadh Fómhair, 1965, freastal ar an míle agus céad mac léinn Eolaíochta agus maolú a dhéanamh ar an siar-bhrú atá ar an gcóiríocht atá ann fé láthair.

Taobh amuigh ar fad den riachtanas agus den fhónamh mhór atá leis an bhfoirgneamh nua Eolaíochta, níor mhiste dom a rá, measaim, go raibh baill an Tí seo nuair d'aontaigh siad leis an soláthar dó ag taispeáint a muiníne as an dtír san am le teacht. Cé nach raibh ceist an Mhargaidh Choitinn beo nuair a cuireadh an beartas seo fé bhráid an Tí i dtosach, is cinnte anois go mbeidh an foirgneamh nua Eolaíochta ina bhuntáiste mhór dúinn i leith an Mhargaidh sin.

Baineann £32,000 den tsuim chaipitil le críochnú Céim a dó den chóiríocht breise a bhí ag teastáil go géar i gColáiste na hIolscoile, Gaillimh. An £50,000 is i leith deisithe riachtanacha i gcás na bhfoirgneamh i gColáiste na Trionóide atá sé.

Níl aon rud beag nó mór i gceist le gan aon soláthar caipitil do bheith déanta do Choláiste na hIolscoile, Corcaigh, ach nach bhfuiltear tagaithe ar shocrú chinnte fós i gcás foirgnimh nua Eolaíochta don Choláiste sin. Ó thaobh soláthair chaipitil dhe níl aon chiall le bheith ag cuimhneamh ar bhliain ar leith. An rud atá le breithniú nuair atáthar ag déanamh comparáide ná cén pointe atá sroiste ins na réamhchomhráití. Ina leith sin níl, mar adúirt mé cheana, baol ar bith ann go ligfidh Corcaigh d'aoinne dearmad a dhéanamh uirthí.

Siad na méadaithe atá ins na deontaisí reatha: Coláiste na hIolscoile, Baile Átha Cliath, £77,000; Coláiste na hIolscoile, Corcaigh, £32,000; Coláiste na hIolscoile, Gaillimh, £25,000 agus Coláiste na Trionóide, £55,000. Thángathas ar na figiúirí sin ar bhun meastachán de na riachtanais ó thaobh foirne breise agus méadaithe tuarastail. Nuair a chuirtear ar an láimh amháin na méadaithe leith ar leith i gcompráid leis an líon mac léinn agus ar an láimh eile nuair a chuimhnítear air nach dtéann na costaisí riartha suas do réir mar a théann an líon mac léinn suas, measaim, agus gach rud a chur san áireamh, go n-aontófar go bhfuil na méaduithe a deineadh ag teacht le breithmheas cóir ar riachtanais na gColáistí ar leith.

AN GAILEIRÍ NÁISIÚNTA.

An méid glan atá ag teastáil ná £15,130 agus an méadú glan de £1,150, tá an méadú san ar fad i leith gnáthbhreisithe tuarastail agus i leith an "ochtú cúrsa" ó thaobh tuarastail agus páighe.

Tairgim:

"Go gcuirfear an Meastachán siar chun a athbhreithnithc."

Sílim gurab é an t-ualach ba throime ab éigin don Aire a iompar ná an ráiteas a léigh sé dhúinn anois beag. Níor thuig mé leath den mhéid adúirt sé. Cad chuige, in ainm Dé, más mian linn focail úra a úsáid i nGaeilge, nach mbainimid feidhm as na focail a fáisceadh as an dteanga inar ceapadh iad? Do chuala mé focail dhá léamh amach inniu nár thuig mé agus ní dóigh liom gur thuig an tAire iad ach oiread.

Cúpla bómaite ó shin, d'inis an tAire dhúinn go raibh deontais ag dul go dtí na hOllscoileanna i mBaile Átha Cliath, Corcaigh agus Gaillimh. Tugaim faoi deara go bhfuil an deontas is lú ag dul go dtí an Ollscoil i nGaillimh, an t-aon Ollscoil amháin sa tír ina múintear achan rud ar an gclár i nGaeilge. Cad chuige é sin? Tá a fhios ag an Aire agus ag an Teach go bhfuil an teanga ag imeacht uainn. Níl dhá sholáthar againn sa Meastachán seo ach an méid a chuireamar ar fáil anuraidh agus an bhliain roimhe sin.

As I have just said, the heaviest burden the Minister had to bear during the past 12 months was the reading of that speech.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

I sympathise with the Minister in having to read that speech. I know the Minister has an earnest interest in the Irish language and makes a serious effort, when the opportunity arises, to speak it; but I certainly sympathise with him in having to read a speech such as the one we have just heard. If linguists of another language have to coin a word to describe some modern invention, why must we depend on our civil servants to coin another word in our language to describe it? Why can we not use the word in the language in which it was first invented? When I hear of "television" and "telefís" and when I hear of "radio" and "radio", I ask myself why can we not use the word in the language in which it was originally invented and not leave it to civil servants to coin a word, the meaning of which it takes one years to understand? That is bad policy.

I am disappointed at the Minister's speech, very disappointed indeed. It is the speech we heard last year and the year before. The only difference I can see in it is that there are increases in the amounts being voted for salaries and pensions and more for schools on account of increased building costs. But in this year, when we are on the eve of being accepted into or refused admission to the Common Market, I expected something revolutionary to keep us abreast of international affairs.

Strong words, God help us.

In this year when we have to realise for the first time — we have been saying it for years — that the Irish language is dying out and when we have shaken up Fianna Fáil so much to our way of thinking——

God forgive you.

I am glad the Deputy, who has just returned from a refresher course in Strasbourg on Continental languages, has the audacity to interrupt me when I am speaking on the native tongue.

Why does the Deputy not speak in the native tongue?

I had just finished——

Excuse me.

—— when the Deputy came in and so rudely interrupted me. I hope to continue later and I hope the Deputy will follow my example.

I do not understand Donegal Irish.

I am expected to speak to woodenheads on the other benches who do not understand my Irish.

He understands the Strasbourg French dialect.

A teacher tells me he does not understand our Donegal dialect. Is it any wonder we are beginning to throw our hands in the air and say that Irish is gone? A teacher educated through the medium of Irish in the national school, the secondary school and the training college tells me he does not understand the Donegal dialect.

My interruption was purely facetious.

The Deputy is becoming a bit worried about having made it?

Last year, Fine Gael announced that something revolutionary must be done; if we are to revive the language as the spoken language. For the first time, Fianna Fáil woke up and did the usual thing: they set up a Commission, which I thought would bring in an immediate report and allow their findings to be published. I thought the Minister's speech today would be based on the findings of that Commission. Instead, we heard very little about the Irish language, and more is the pity.

I believe that a language, just like a flag, is the badge of a tribe. But there is no use having a badge unless you display it. There is no use having a badge in the lapel of your coat if it is at the back of the lapel. There is no use having a language unless we are able to speak it. A literary knowledge of the language is absolutely useless unless we are able to speak the language. There is no difference in the policy of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or any other Party here in so far as the Irish language is concerned. We are anxious to make it the spoken language, or one of the spoken languages, of the country, but we disagree on the methods and policies to implement our wishes. If we made mistakes in the past, let us not be afraid to admit them and let us see how we can remedy them. We know that as a result of the compulsory teaching of subjects through the medium of Irish and of placing less emphasis on oral Irish, the language is going to disappear.

There is one Deputy on the Fianna Fáil benches for whom I have nothing but respect in his desire to see Irish the spoken language of the country. I refer to Deputy Faulkner. I know what he and some of the voluntary organisations with which he is associpulsor ated are doing to revive Irish. I was delighted to hear an interruption of his some time ago when we were discussing Telefís Éireann. He said he hoped more emphasis would be laid on the spoken language and more time devoted to lessons and conversation. I can assure the Minister that Comhaltas Uladh, Gael Linn and a few other organisations have done much more for the revival of the Irish language than the Department of Education has done over the past 40 years. I wonder could we pick out an all Ireland Gaelic team from the Twenty-Six Counties, leaving out Galway, Kerry, Mayo and possibly Donegal——

The Deputy is leaving out the best teams.

Which one is that?

Galway is one.

Leaving out those four Irish-speaking counties, could we pick an all-Ireland team from the Twenty-Six Counties that could produce five members who could give an interview over Radio Éireann in fluent Irish such as the members of the County Down team did last Monday? I bet we could not pick five such people who could do it impromptu, do it on topical subjects, do it on the occasion of their visit to another country and express what they hoped to do and achieve there. Each and every member of that team was educated in the six north-eastern counties where Irish is not compulsory but where there is a love for the language, a love which has not been driven into hatred by compulsion. As I said here many times, there is more Irish spoken on the streets of Belfast than on the streets of Dublin because our youth have been brought up to detest the language through which they were taught other subjects, a language which they did not understand.

May I quote a very simple example of this difficulty? In my office, I have qualified solicitors who had to qualify in the Irish language before being admitted as solicitors. I have five typists who were taught through the medium of Irish. I am the only one in the office who was not taught through the medium of Irish, but if an Irish speaker comes into the office, I have to be sent for because not one of my staff, my associates or partners can understand what is said by a native Irish speaker.

Is that not something of which we should be ashamed? Is that not something which should make us inquire into our methods of reviving the language? Our policy towards the Irish language should be to concentrate on the spoken word, to give the children an opportunity of going into the cradle of the language, to spend some time there acquiring a spoken knowledge of the language from the people who have it from birth and, when they return to the schools and to their homes, to encourage them to speak it by organising follow-up classes in oral Irish and, at the same time, to abolish compulsory teaching of other subjects through the medium of Irish in schools outside the Gaeltacht.

That is the only method of reviving the language. If we do that and if we continue to send children to the Gaeltacht, not for the two months which is all Comhaltas Uladh or Gael Linn can afford but for the 12 months, we shall be keeping the people of the Gaeltacht employed during that period; we shall revive the economy of the Gaeltacht, encourage the son of the fear an tighe to remain at home, to build a new house and to become a fear an tighe himself. In that way, we shall spread from the ever-dwindling Fíor-Ghaeltacht into the Breac-Ghaeltacht and further out into the Galltacht Irish speakers who will retain the dialect of the locality in which they have spent these 12 months.

Let us start with Donegal, Mayo, Kerry and Galway. Let us put the students from the North into the northern Gaeltacht, the students from the West into the western Gaeltacht and the students from the south into the southern Gaeltacht and let us forget about the Civil Service Irish in the city of Dublin. If we do that, we shall encourage the speaking of the language in the dialects in which it is spoken. I was surprised at Deputy Carty when he interrupted me.

My interruption was purely facetious.

That is the worst of the Deputy. I can never tell the difference. When I speak in this House I am always serious. Deputy Carty is a good Irish speaker and I can assure him that were he to go into the Donegal Gaeltacht and spend three days there, he would have no difficulty in following the Donegal dialect; or if he were to spend three days in Ballyferriter in Kerry he would have no difficulty whatever in following the Kerry dialect. If he wishes to go up to the north of Scotland, to which I have gone and in which I have spoken with Scots Gaelic speakers, after a week there, he will have no difficulty whatsoever in following the dialect. There will be words of which he will not know the meaning certainly. Put a West Cork man in a room with a man from the Lagan Valley or the Shankill Road in Belfast for half an hour, and leave them there speaking the Queen's English and there will be many words that neither will understand, but, after a few days, their ears will become attuned and they will begin to understand each other perfectly.

I was disappointed that the one university in which all faculty subjects are taught through the medium of Irish, namely, Galway University, should now receive the smallest deontas or grant from the Government. Does that not show that the number of students desirous of being taught through the medium of Irish is dwindling rapidly? The sooner we realise that, the better it will be. The sooner we cease to behave like ostriches, the sooner we take our heads out of the sand, and realise the language is going, the better it will be for all of us.

I was disappointed, also, to note that after some 40 years of native Government, the greater part of the moneys in this Estimate is being devoted to the building of schools. I should have thought we ought to have sufficient schools now in which to educate our children, particularly in view of the fact that we have a falling population. Apparently schools are still needed. I am glad the Minister is pushing forward with the programme. I do not blame him for the present situation. The blame for that must be shared by all his predecessors.

I should like the Minister to revise the plans in relation to school buildings. I know that is really a matter for the Office of Public Works, but perhaps he could exercise some influence. I often wonder at the lack of common sense in the plans drawn by the Office of Public Works. Many years ago it was alleged that a barracks which should have been erected in the Khyber Pass was erected by the Office of Public Works in Connemara. I am afraid there is something of the same outlook still. I must admit that on the western seaboard they have built wisely from the point of view of giving the schools a southerly aspect in order to catch the sun. Unfortunately, the schools also catch the prevailing wind. Not one school has a second, or back, door. All entrances and exits must be made through the front door. If the wind is from the prevailing airt one can understand how unpleasant it is for both teachers and pupils. The toilet accommodation is sited outside and the doors are opening and closing all day long. A little initiative and common sense on the part of the architects should enable doors to be sited in such a way as to cause less discomfort to pupils and teachers alike.

In new schools, too much space is taken up with corridors and porches. These are covered with terrazzo or tiles, both of which are dangerous surfaces for small children wearing rubber-soled shoes. They can also create a great deal of work from the point of view of cleaning. In most of the schools, there is a staff room for the teachers, but there is no provision for either lighting or heating the room and, in most cases, it degenerates into a lumber room. More attention should be paid to the planning of national schools. I know it is a longterm policy. In the meantime, where piped water can be laid on it should be laid on, and flush lavatories should be installed. I remember one particular case in Donegal. I put down a question asking that Belcruit National School should be connected up with piped water; there was piped water within 14 feet of the school.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

The Minister made no reference to the curriculum in the national schools. There are two subjects I should like taught in our national schools. The first is civics. I do not think our children are being imbued with a proper respect for the State and its emblems. I should like all children taught how to respect our flag. I should like them taught how to fly the flag. I should like them to know what it means. Going round the country at election time, one finds the flag treated in a most unbecoming manner, to say the least of it. I know this is due to ignorance. If the children were taught in the national schools——

Then they must forget very quickly, or they must be taught through the medium of Irish, which they do not understand. I accept Deputy Cunningham's word, but I suggest that they should have a demonstration of the proper method of treating the flag, how it should be hoisted and lowered, and the hours during which it should be flown. That would leave a more permanent impression. It would be an important lesson in civics.

I should like physical culture to be taught in our schools. I am not terribly old, but in my time physical culture was essential in national schools. I note that from the point of view of national teachers, the curriculum is completely overloaded. There are a few examples in this House, just like myself, who would give a very poor display of physical exercise. I do not think we should be expected to do it.

There was a time——

Yes, there was a time. However, if half an hour or an hour were devoted each week to physical exercise in our schools, it would be a useful activity. I do not see why a Civic Guard could not be called upon to give an hour each week in the different schools.

Do you want to kill them?

Kill whom? The children or the Guards?

The Guards.

I do not think they are over-burdened, particularly since they became mobile. There would be no great difficulty in calling at the national school, now that they have patrol cars. It is a very useful lesson— a lesson in self-restraint, a lesson in team work, a lesson in self-reliance, on many occasions. It is something that should be encouraged. I do not think it should be overlooked. The health of the child is of equal importance with its education. An unhealthy child can never be educated. Again, I repeat that it is something that should not be overlooked.

With the co-operation of his colleague, the Minister for Justice— when he gets over the burden of the Intoxicating Liquor Bill and settles down to friendly co-operation, for a change — the Minister might be able to promote the teaching of physical culture once more in our national schools. The Minister might find the schoolroom much more co-operative than, say, some of the associations with which he is dealing at the moment. I recommend consideration of this matter.

May I just, in passing, refer to one other matter? I know provision is made in the Estimate for the payment of an increase to teachers who retired with certain pensions. Unfortunately, unlike the case of the judges it is not retrospective. As a matter of fact, it will not come into operation, I understand, until 1st August next. I cannot make out why we should single out the judiciary and make their increases retrospective. The unfortunate teacher who retired at 65 is not so well treated. Some of them are now possibly 80 or 81 years of age. If the increase were given to them immediately, it might make a big difference between comfort and discomfort in the last few months or last few years of their life. Perhaps the Minister could this time get the ear of his colleague, the Minister for Finance, in an effort to do something for these poorer sections, the retired pensioners of his Department, who gave loyal service. As I say, it would be beneficial to them.

On the subject of secondary schools, again, I thought we would hear more about the new curriculum. So far as I can see, three dead languages are now taught in our secondary schools— Greek, Latin and Irish. I have already referred to the Irish language: I do not propose to refer to it further. I can never understand why Greek is being taught in our secondary schools. I can understand its being taught in diocesan colleges or in clerical schools but, for the ordinary secondary school, I can never understand why Greek is taught. I understand it is one of the qualifications necessary for the priesthood. However, when a student leaves the secondary school and goes into Maynooth he is no longer taught Greek. It is dropped. In my view, it is a subject that we should drop in our secondary schools. I certainly would agree to the teaching of Latin. Irish I would retain, but not in the manner in which we are endeavouring to keep it in the curriculum.

I should like to see more emphasis on modern languages if we are serious about entering the Common Market and if we are serious about inviting continental industrialists here, continentals with the know-how on technical matters — and I hope it will be reciprocated. I hope Irish industries will be set up on the Continent. There is nothing I should like better than to see Messrs. Guinness set up a brewery in France. It would save some Deputies, when they go abroad, from having to partake of a wine which we seldom drink.

Why does the Deputy not speak for himself?

I certainly would feel more at home with my nose in the froth of a good Guinness pint than in the cut nose glass which is generally associated with these continental drinks. I should like to see Guinnesses, Jacobs and some of our traditional Irish industries push into the Continent. I hope they will do so.

That would be a matter for another Minister.

With respect, I am referring to them in the context that if we enter the Common Market and if some of our industries push into the Continent there is not much use in their going there and speaking Civil Service Irish. They would require a little more than that—and that is where I become relevant to this particular Estimate. If we expand our industries into the Continent it is essential that we should have a knowledge of the language of the country into which we hope to go.

When we meet the German and French technicians who have arrived here already, and some of the Americans, it is amazing to find that they understand the English language and indeed have a very good knowledge of it. They have no difficulty whatsoever in conversing with the people not only in good literary English but in the vernacular, which is sometimes most descriptive. It would be no harm to have a very good knowledge of continental languages such as Spanish, French, Italian and German. It would do a lot of good. It would be very beneficial to pupils in a secondary school. We should now endeavour to promote these languages, as I say, on the eve of our entry into the Common Market, as we all hope.

There is no use in looking to these subjects at the last moment and when it is too late. We have been advising, for years now, that we should make preparation for our entry into the Common Market. That is one of the methods whereby we can make preparation. While we should encourage students of less mature years to go to the Gaeltacht to acquire the Irish language in the vernacular we should also encourage our students, particularly our secondary school students of Continental languages, to go to the Continent and there to polish up the languages which they are being taught. It would do a lot of good.

The best, in my opinion, not only in primary, secondary and technical education, but even in University education, should be available to every boy and girl in this country, no matter how poor his or her circumstances. The financial status of another student should not be the standard of a child's entry into a secondary school or a university. More scholarships should be made available to all our students for secondary and vocational education as well as for university education. We should not depend on the rates for contributions to the scholarships. After all, when a graduate is educated, he very seldom goes back for employment to the local authority which provided the scholarship. The State should be responsible for these scholarships and they should accept that responsibility.

Sufficient attention is not paid in our secondary schools to rural science and agricultural subjects. Ours is an agricultural country. Certainly in our vocational schools, we are now turning towards rural science, but what are we doing in the secondary schools in regard to rural science? Many of our farmers are anxious to give their sons secondary and university education, but they cannot procure education in agricultural subjects when they go up to the university or in our secondary schools. We are neglecting agricultural subjects. If we paid more attention to them, it would be a very good thing indeed.

There are two other matters which I intend to mention in regard to national schools. One is the transport of students to and from the national schools in the rural and more isolated parts of the country. I know the Minister subsidises the transport of students where the number is eight, I think, or more. I know he contributes to the transport provided by the school manager, but it would be much better, where there are small pockets of children, if we provided transport for them to a central school in the parish, and if they were taught there by different teachers, instead of having a general practitioner or a teacher from the infant class to the sixth or seventh class. Such a teacher cannot give the same attention to the various classes. It would be a good thing if we could provide them with suitable transport.

Again, on the subject of national schools, some attention should be paid to the code of the national schools. I understand the present code was first published in 1946. It consists of a number of loose leaves pinned to the walls. It would be better if the code were in booklet form, made available to the teachers in that form, and revised every two or three years. At the moment it is, like legislation by reference, a bad thing. As Deputies who are teachers know, that code of rules is completely outmoded and outdated. The Minister should have it revised.

I have already referred to the Irish language at some length, but on the question of the Irish language in the national schools, there is another matter to which I wish to refer. Deputies may not know that in the Gaeltacht where a child attends a national school and where the Irish language is the principal language in the home, a deontas or grant is paid per capita. While it is compulsory to send a child of five years of age to the national school, unfortunately this grant is not paid until the child reaches the age of seven years. That should be rectified. If a child is from an Irish-speaking family, that deontas should be paid from the day he first goes to the national school and they should not have to wait two years for it.

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy but that grant is the responsibility of the Minister for the Gaeltacht.

That may be, but the Minister's inspectors are responsible for the examination of these students for the deontas. Who pays it is a different matter. I think, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle rightly pointed out, that would come under one of the subheads of Roinn na Gaeltachta. The Minister's inspectors are the people who investigate the qualifications of applicants for that grant. There should be some liaison between them and the officers of Roinn na Gaeltachta.

For instance, if a family qualifies for a Gaeltacht housing grant, that family should automatically qualify for this Gaeltacht deontas. That does not often happen. Again, if one qualifies for a Gaeltacht deontas, one should automatically qualify for a Gaeltacht housing grant. When one of the Minister's inspectors is transferred from one school area to another, he should leave his reports behind him for his successor, and thus avoid the necessity of re-investigating the means of the family. So far as I can see, an inspector's notebook is his own private property which is not made available to the Department or his successor. The Minister should look into it, anyway, because it might save a considerable amount of time and expedite the payment of these grants.

The Minister should endeavour to have standardised Irish textbooks, suitably graded and well-written, for all schools, primary, secondary and university. If there is one dialect in which there is a lack of such a textbook, it is the Donegal dialect. We are the orphans and something should be done in that respect. With the advent of Irish TV — although we have not yet seen Telefís Éireann in County Donegal — I hope a fair proportion of the programmes in the Irish language will be in the Donegal dialect. We have very strong opposition from UTV, BBC and ITV which it will be very difficult to obliterate.

We have a number of maritime counties in this State which have occupied islands off their coasts. There is considerable difficulty in staffing the island schools. That stands to reason, of course, because it is difficult to persuade teachers to take up residence on an island and settle down there for the rest of their teaching lives. Some incentive should be given to them, particularly by way of increased salaries.

The Minister will find out from his colleagues that we found great difficulty in relation to medical staff on our islands. The only way we could do it was by giving an incentive to the doctors of an additional salary to take up residence on the islands. The Minister might consider doing the same thing with regard to teachers, particularly assistant teachers. If he examines the roll of teachers he will find that at the present time most assistants in the islands are untrained junior assistant mistresses. If he wants trained teachers to go there he will have to give an incentive by way of increased salaries.

Again, it is most difficult to acquire vocational or secondary education, if one resides on an island. With the exception of Aran, off the Galway coast, I do not think there is an island off the coast on which there is a vocational school. There is not a secondary school on a solitary island off our coast. Some effort should be made to increase the scholarships to both technical and secondary schools for islanders or else we should evacuate the islands. It would be a pity to do that. A great effort is being made in Scotland at the moment to repopulate the islands off the coast. They are potential tourist resorts. The Minister might consider giving additional incentives to the people residing on islands if they wish to continue to reside there. In the Hebrides, off the Scottish coast, additional salaries have been paid to teachers to encourage them to take up residence on the islands and to remain there.

It is a good thing that more secondary schools are springing up all over the country but many individuals are anxious to establish such schools. In the Fíor-Ghaeltacht grants are given to people for the establishment of these schools and the Minister should now go a little further and, where he considers a new or additional secondary school is necessary, give substantial grants for its building and thus give the people in rural Ireland an opportunity of secondary education.

We are making great strides in technical education. Vocational committees throughout the country are building very fine schools indeed. Larger State grants should be given for these schools. The curriculum should be revised. I was glad to know the number of new subjects now being taught. The trouble is that in these vocational schools the rudiments of a trade are taught and then the people are pushed out. We make no effort to follow up and procure admission to a union or employment for these partially educated vocational pupils. Along our seaboard I would like to see more employment given in respect of navigation, marine engineering, net making and other subjects ancillary to the fishing industry. I would like to see these students when they leave the vocational schools, offered employment in the Fisheries Branch and An Bord Iascaigh Mhara and other semi-Government establishments.

Again, if a boy does a course in carpentry in the vocational school there should be some method whereby that course would be recognised for entry into a union. There should be similar recognition for a course in engineering. The Department should endeavour to see that those boys procure employment in some of the quasi State organisations or with some private concerns which have procured a grant from the State for their establishment. By doing that we would be doing an amount of good and helping and encouraging boys to attend these vocational schools which are doing such a wonderful job.

At the risk of being misrepresented, I say that I think the university is the curse of this country. Ninety per cent, of the students who graduate from our universities are either migrants or emigrants. We cannot procure employment for them here. It is a good thing to see them going, if they have to go, educated but some endeavour should be made to retain them in this country. It is a bad thing to see a young engineer, after spending three years in the university, pushed into a job anywhere in this country without any previous experience. It is a bad thing for a member of the legal profession who has just passed his final examination to be pushed into an office and permitted to open up practice there. That no longer applies in the medical profession although it did up to four or five years ago.

I fear we are travelling far from things which are the responsibility of the Minister.

I am dealing with education and I am saying that there should be practical experience after the final examination before degrees are conferred. If the Leas-Cheann Comhairle tells me I am out of order in dealing with that matter, I shall bow to his ruling.

The Deputy is in order on that point.

Very well, then. In the medical profession, when a doctor has done his final examination, he must now do one year in a hospital before he can set up in practice. That is good because it ensures that he has some practical experience. Unfortunately, most of our doctors are now emigrating to do that year's hospital work and I think we should be able to do something here in regard to that matter. Local authority hospitals, particularly those established in recent years, should absorb a good many of these students in their post-graduate year. Students should be permitted to do the post-graduate residential year in these hospitals.

I am glad to see that some local authorities have adopted a scheme to employ fourth-year medical students for three months during the summer vacation at nominal salaries. It is something which is recommended in order to give practical experience to these prospective doctors.

Again, in my own profession, the solicitors' profession, when a student has done his final examination he should do a year with some reliable firm of solicitors to get practical experience before setting up on his own. In the Engineering Faculty, before the degree of B.E. is conferred, students who have passed their final examination should be expected to do a year's practical experience with some qualified engineer, before being put on the labour market or possibly placed in a most responsible position. The same remarks apply to dental students. In that way they could get employment in their own country and an opportunity to earn pocket money and be prevented from going across to tin peas, or pick strawberries in Kent or some other part of England, during the summer vacation.

I do not think there is very much more that I have to say on this Estimate but I do not think I could sit down without thanking the Minister for the courteous manner in which he has received representations from myself and other Deputies on this side of the House throughout the year. He has set a very high standard indeed. He is most courteous and most painstaking in following up any complaints made by Deputies and when one meets him down the country, as Deputies occasionally do in their constituencies, he is most convivial indeed whether one is conversing with him in the native tongue or in English. I should also like to pay tribute to the clerical officers, the Secretary and various other officials of the Department of Education.

I complained earlier about the lack of recognition given to the Ulster dialect of the Irish language but I am satisfied that higher officials of the Department are in no way to blame for that. I sincerely hope that good relations will continue between teachers, be they national, vocational, secondary or university, and the Minister and his Department throughout the year and when disputes or differences arise that they will be solved in a gentlemanly way and that the Minister will have no hesitation in meeting the teachers and will endeavour to see their point of view and bear with them and assist them.

May I conclude by making one last appeal to the Minister on behalf of the old retired teachers? Do not ask them to wait until 1st August. I do not want the Minister to go as far as the Government went in the case of the judges by making their pensions retrospective, but at least give them the increase from 1st June.

I must express my amazement at the manner in which the Minister has introduced this Estimate. I expected to see the whole question of primary, secondary, technical, vocational and university education handled in a 1962 manner. Instead, we get the same humdrum approach as there has been for the past 40 years. We find other countries concentrating more and more every day on educational facilities for their students. Here we find, particularly with regard to primary education, that we have dirty, filthy hovels of schools, with broken windows and floors, with doors falling down and in which in winter time the unfortunate children are compelled to spend the day sitting in old and dirty desks. That is not a proper approach to primary education, particularly in rural Ireland. I should like to see the Minister take his courage in his hands and direct that these schools be improved by having them painted, heated and renovated generally up to modern standards and conditions.

To my mind, nobody will object to any Estimate, no matter how large, for educational purposes. Education is our greatest asset and any money spent on it is money well invested, money which will produce a good return. Our primary schools are overcrowded and understaffed. The meals provided, particularly in winter months, in some cases consist of a glass of cold milk and a hunk of dry bread for the underprivileged students. The time has come for a thorough investigation into the condition of the primary schools particularly in the rural areas. The fact that the ratio of expenditure per student on primary education in Ireland is £19.2 to £48.6 in England alone justifies a revolutionary approach or a "tear asunder" approach, if you wish to put it that way, with regard to primary education.

Before I leave primary education, there is one matter which I should like to impress on the Minister, that is, the need for greater provision for handicapped and backward children. These unfortunates are left in the last desk in the school until it pleases the teacher, who is overworked and overworried, to pay some attention to them. I suggest that in regard to handicapped and backward children a special course in training and teaching should be set out, perhaps for some of the religious orders, and let those who do the course qualify for a very arduous and difficult task which requires extreme patience. All such children in a school should be grouped in one class away from the other children, perhaps in a different building. As we know, children can be very hurtful unintentionally and we have often heard, when we were going to school, some unfortunate afflicted child being called "cod-eye" or "left-eye" or whatever it might be. We were hurtful without realising it. The Minister did it himself and so did we all. I say that there should be a special building set aside for that particular type of child.

Let me now come to the field of secondary education. Here the tragic position is that no money is available for the building of secondary schools in Ireland. We have in the city of Limerick a crying demand for secondary education. The people who want to build a secondary school cannot extend the one they have at present. They have now to resort to organising flag days around the city begging the charity of the citizens to enable them to erect a secondary school for their students. That is a tragic, pitiable and damnable position, a position which should not exist.

Most of us here went through the secondary school. When I dragged myself through a secondary school, year after year, we bartered and bargained for the books used by the students in the previous year. We got our Irish books, our books on mathematics, our history and geography books or whatever books we wanted at a cheap rate from the students who had left that particular year. What is the position today? Year after year, new books are put in the different curricula for each subject — expensive books. They are used for one year and cast aside the next year. The incoming students have to purchase new books during the four or five years they attend the secondary school until they obtain their leaving certificate.

The fees for secondary schools offer no hope to the ordinary workingman. They are beyond his means even in the case of a person with one child, but if that person has two or three children and he wishes all the children to attend the secondary school, the fees put it beyond his means to continue the children's secondary education. I would ask the Minister to consider these facts with regard to secondary education.

Secondary education is not being tackled in any manner that suits the rural areas. We get secondary schools scattered here and there around a county. Some counties may have one and others two, but there is nothing like the number of secondary schools necessary to cater for the demands of the county. The result is that children have to be sent into the larger towns to stay there at night in digs or in boarding houses. Here again the workingman is deprived of secondary education facilities for his children.

To prove that statement, let me give a glaring example concerning the ratio between Donegal and Limerick. The number of children entering secondary schools between the ages of 12 and 18 in Donegal is 10.4 per cent. The ratio of children between 12 and 18 years of age entering secondary schools in Limerick is 28.2 per cent. That bears out exactly what I have said — that the question of facilities for secondary education in the rural areas needs immediate and demanding examination.

I now want to deal with the question of languages. We hear a lot about a spoken native language but never, while grass grows and water flows, will we have a spoken Irish language while we have compulsory Irish because the Irish people, as a rule, in their nature, abhor compulsion. Just after the Black and Tan trouble and during the Civil War, we flocked into the Gaelic League at night to learn Irish. I was one of those people. I do not know whether the Minister was. I would say he was too young. We did it in Limerick and we looked forward to the nights when we went down to the Gaelic League to learn Irish. What are they doing today? Because of the compulsion introduced in the schools, our children are turning their backs on the language. Whatever amount of it they retain the day they close their books for the last time and leave the school, the language is no longer used.

The world is getting smaller and smaller with the advent of the jet age. I am sure the jets will be improved on in the next five or six years. We are coming nearer and nearer to one another but what provision is the Minister making in his Estimates for encouraging the teaching of the living European languages? I refer primarily to French, German, Italian and Spanish. There is very little provision made. On the other hand, a capitation fee is given for the drilling and the bulldozing of the Irish language into the brain of the child. Out of that capitation fee, the school authorities draw a handsome figure when examinations are held through the medium of Irish. I would advise the Minister to withdraw these facilities straight away. Whatever amount is granted for insisting on compulsion should be given to encourage the learning of French, German, Italian and Spanish. These are the necessary living languages of Europe to-day. These are the languages with which our youth, who are coming out of our schools, should be equipped. We stand indicted on this matter.

These countries I mention — Germany, France and England — have made provision in their Estimates for education which is double our present allowance over the next ten years. I have given the comparative figure as between Ireland and England in respect to primary education, given the ratio between Irish and English secondary schools. I would now ask what provision we have made in our Estimate to cover the next ten years. We have an increased Estimate this year, due principally to higher wages and salaries, but what amount have we set aside for permanent planning units covering all fields of education? How much do we spend on educational research? We have no planning units for education. We certainly have inspectors going around doing routine work, watchdogs where finance is concerned, but what have we done to plan units of research covering the next five or ten years? My approach to secondary education for girls is very simple. Except where they have vocations to join religious orders, the ambition of most girls is to establish happy homes for husbands and families.

Or wrecked ones.

We had better leave that to the extended drinking hours provided for in the Liquor Bill. What provision is being made in our secondary schools to provide higher standards of training in cookery, needlework, crocheting, basketmaking and those things which make for a happy home where a mother is concerned? These unfortunate girls are taught Irish, mathematics, geography. They are told how to find out the circumference of a circular area, or how many fullstops there are in a bottle of ink. But what about the important matters required by a girl who must eventually cook and keep house? What provision has the Minister made in his Estimate to provide instruction to help these girls attain the first-class qualities required by every housewife? Practically nothing.

Now I come to technical and vocational education. Here we are confronted with many difficulties, the first being in respect of the provision of first-class teachers. I do not agree with the manner in which this is being done at the moment. Unfortunately and tragically, that has been demonstrated to us in Limerick where we have in the Technical Institute at the moment a man appointed to a post which does not exist—the headmaster of the Technical Institute. As I said, the position does not exist and we have appointed to it a man who has not got the qualifications demanded by the job thrust upon him.

Unfortunately, as a result of this appointment, we have now reached the stage in Limerick where parents and students are disappointed and frustrated and have lost confidence in our technical education system in Limerick. I would suggest to the Minister that since he has been at fault, since the blame for this appointment must be laid on his shoulders, he should change the whole system of appointment of principals in vocational and technical schools throughout the country in order to bring the standard to such a level as will be of undoubted benefit to students attending classes. The Minister has made a mistake in this matter as far as Limerick is concerned and I would ask him to rectify it. Protest meetings are being held every other night as a result of this. I wish to heavens it had never happened.

I attach the greatest importance to this question of technical and vocational education and I think that steps should be taken to make technical education compulsory in the postprimary period. In my spare time and my enthusiasm, I attended a woodwork class in Limerick six or seven years ago. People of all ages were there and it was most interesting and instructive. Such adult classes are also of great benefit to married women, but if we are to have them, particularly in the rural areas where they are most needed, we need more schools. Unfortunately, the Minister has not provided sufficient money to build such schools so we must do without vital instruction for our people in mechanical, agricultural and other fields of education.

I should also like to see university courses provided through our technical schools. We are denied that to-day because the universities will not allow a first year or second year course in any subject to be taught in the technical schools. That is both a pity and a tragedy. For example, we in Limerick tried to arrange courses through London University on such subjects as business methods, management and so on. But the Minister and his Department clamped down on us and prevented it. Does that spell progress? Not in my language.

What I should like to see is this. The boy who leaves primary school at 12 or 13 and does four or five years at a technical school should be in a position to enter the university and to meet his own brother, who has done a secondary course, at the gate of a university, the two being free to follow whatever courses they choose. But that is not happening. The Minister should be original and leave aside all the humdrum routine. He should face up to the fact that in five or ten years' time, there will be as much French as English spoken in Ireland and vice versa in France. The same applies to every other European country.

I would appeal to the Minister to set up some form of vocational guidance in all schools. I understand something of that kind has been done in Galway. It may not be exactly what I have in mind, but the intention is good. There is vocational guidance in Galway, but there is none in Limerick or rural Ireland. I am sure it is not in Clare, either.

They know where they are going there.

Do they? To England and Canada? That is where they are going.

No, to Shannon.

That is where they are going. The Minister knows it as well as I do. It is absolutely necessary to have a scheme of vocational guidance. It will help parents and will guide the children along the paths best suited to them. I hope the Minister will take cognisance of what I have said and the suggestions I have made and will act on them with courage and speed.

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom comhgáirdeachas a dhéanamh leis an Aire as ucht an dul chun cinn atá déanta imbliana agus anuraidh. Tá a fhíos agam go bhfuil ard-mheas ag muintir na hÉireann ar an Aire seo agus ar an obair atá déanta aige.

Tá breis agus £12 milliún dhá chaitheamh ar an mbun-oideachas imbliana. Is maith an rud é sin mar is é an bhun-oideachas bun-cloch an oideachais go léir. Is é an bunoideachas an gné den scolaíocht is mó atá ar fáil ag páistí na tíre. Ar an ábhar sin, ba cheart go mbeadh na bun-scoileanna i bhfad níos fearr ná scoil ar bith eile sa tír. Is tearc duine a gheobhaidh ard-oideachas. Dá bhrí sin, caithfidh siad an tairbhe is mó is féidir a bhaint as an mbun-oideachas.

Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil sé deacair foireann mhaith a fháil chun teagasc a dhéanamh, ach tá an tAire ag déanamh sár obair chun an cás sin a leigheas agus cítear dúinn go bhfuil níos mó ná 10 múinteoirí breise ag teacht amach an bhliain seo chun iarracht a dhéanamh ar an fadhb sin a réiteach.

Tá na ranganna ins na bun scoileanna ró-mhór. Is minic a bhíonn ar múinteoirí ceithre ranganna a theagasc agus tá fhios ag gach duine go bhfuil sé fíor-dheacair ésin a dhéanamh go mór mhór ins na bun scoileanna nach bhfuil ach oide amháin ionta. Cítear dúinn go minic go mbíonn 20 daltaí nó níos lua i ranganna ins na ceard scoileanna agus go mbíonn 60 nó 70 ins na bun scoileanna. Is maith an rud go bhfuil an tAire chun é seo a réiteach tré líon na ranganna a ísliú.

Tugaim fé ndeara comh maith go bhfuil beartaithe ag an Aire scoileanna a sholáthair do lag-in-tinneacha. Tá gá le múinteoirí a bheadh oilte arphaistí mar seo a theagasc agus an bhliain seo airím go bhfuil breis agus 14 duine oilte le túirt fén obair. Nuair a bheidh an scéim seo ag dul ar aghaidh go maith beidh seans níos fearr ag na paistí oideachas a fháil. Is deacair dos na múinteoirí aire a thúirt dóibh fé láthair mar bíonn a ndóthain le déanamh ag na hoidí leis na gná pháistí. Pé scéal é ba chóir dúinn bheith buíoch as an dul chun cinn seo.

A lán des na Gaeil a théionn thar lear agus fiú amháin na daoine sa tír féin a éiríonn go dtí na postanna is aoirde, ní fhaigheann siad oideachas ar bith ach an toideachas a gheibheann siad ins na scoileanna náisiúnta. Ar an ábhar sin iarraim go dícheallach ar an Aire gach cabhair a thabhairt dos na scoileanna sin. Má dheineann sé é sin beidh bun maith curtha aige ar oideachas sa tír seo.

Maidir leis na mean scoileanna sé an Cléir is mó a chuireann tús leo siúd agus mar gheall ar ganntannas na scol seo is minic go mbíonn aistir fada le taisteal ag dálthaí chun freastail ortha. I láthair na huaire tá fonn are níos mó des na ghná daoine go solathrófaí mean-oideachais dóibh. Nílim cinnte ar féidir socrú a dhéanamh idir na mean scoileanna agus na ceard scoileanna ionnus go ndéanfaí na hábhar a múintear ins na ceard scoileanna agus ins na mean scoileanna a idiir-dhealú, go mbeadh teastas le fáil agus go mbeadh an luach céanna ag gabháil leis an teastas a gheobhfadh an duine a chaithfeadh blianta áirithe ins an ceard scoil agus a bheadh ag dul le teastas ón mean scoil.

Tá a lán airgid á chaitheamh ar oideachas ins na ceard scoileanna agus go minic múintear ins na scoileanna seo na hábhair agus an caighdeán céanna a múintear ins na bun scoileanna. Dá bhrí sin nuair a théionn daoine ag freastal ar an ceard scoil caileann siad bliain ag túirt faoi rudaí atá foghluimithe acu cheana féin. Ba cheart go bhféadfadh duine go bhfuil bun-teastas aige dul isteach i rang níos aoirde sa cheard scoil. Tá costas na gceard scol ar na rátaí agus rialtas áitiúil agus tá an tairgead atá ar fáil dos na comhairle conndae scaipthe i measc na coistí oideachais i rith na tíre. Dul chun cinn maith isea é go bhfuil ar intinn ag an Aire cuid den airgead atá ar iarraidh aige féin a sholáthrú, direach os na coistí oideachais.

Mar gheall ar na hoilscoileanna, níl sé ar intinn agam morán a rá mar go bhfuil an obair seo sásúil go leor. Pé scéal é, daoine a bhíonn ag freastal ag na ceard scoileanna agus a theastuíonn uatha dul go dtí an ollscoil, nuair a théionn siad ann níl na hábhair atá ag teastáil uatha á múineadh ar chéim níos aoirde ins na hiolscoileanna.

Is maith an rud go bhfuil airgead á thabhairt do Chomhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge chun cabhair a thabhairt do dhaoine dramaí Gaeilge a chur ar fáil. Rachaidh an obair sin chun leas na teangan. Ba mhaith liom moladh fé leith a thabhairt d'Ollscoil na Gaillimhe as ucht a dheineann siad ar son na Gaeilge. Táim cinnte go ndéanfaidh an tAire gach is féidir leis a dhéanamh ar son na pinsinéirí ins na bun scoileanna. Siad sin na daoine a bhí ag obair go cruaidh i rith a saol agus is maith atá an tairgead tuillte aca.

I shall conclude by referring to the position of the Irish language. I do so because it is something on which I feel very strongly and which will require the efforts of Deputies on all sides of the House and indeed the best efforts of the nation if we are to make further progress. The references which have been made to the Irish language by the Redmondites, if I may call them so, of the Front Bench of Fine Gael are not conducive to progress.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

The task of restoring the Irish language is something we should not under-estimate and something which, I think, has been under-estimated by Ministers in the past. Perhaps it is that under-estimation which has led to some of the frustration that has existed, but I do honestly think it does not help these efforts in any way to introduce slogans relating to the Irish language during election campaigns. It is something that should be regarded as being above Party politics. Indeed it is something that is very much above that level. There have been very prominent members on the Fine Gael side of the House who were very enthusiastic supporters of the language for the years but they are now replaced by shoneens with West Briton ideas. This defeatist attitude could have very serious repercussions throughout the country. It would immediately create the impression that there was a weakness which does not, in fact, exist.

The language is well taught in the national, vocational and secondary schools. Those who want to know the facts will find that there is no compulsory Irish in any of those schools. They will find that to talk about compulsory Irish is no more justifiable than to talk about compulsory mathematics. Every subject in a national school is compulsory, so far as the child is concerned. The subjects must be taught. We hear a lot of "tommy rot" about the amount of money spent on restoring the language. The money is spent on teaching other subjects as well. It is spent in paying the staff. We shall not make any progress if the teaching of the Irish language in our schools is used as an election gimmick so as to secure a temporary Party advantage.

Nach bhfuil an Teachta sásta go bhfuil an Ghaeilge ag fáil báis?

Cad na thaobh nach raibh an Teachta annseo nuair a bhí mé ag cainnt as Gaeilge?

Tabhair freagra ar an gceist.

Ní'l mé sásta. Ní ormsa a luigheann an locht nach raibh tusa anseo. Ní chreideann an Teachta mé. Tá mé macánta ins an méid atá 'á rá agam. The restoration of the Irish language will need the cooperation of everybody. There may be people in this country who do not wish it to happen. That is only a case where "the leopard does not change his spots". At the same time, we have made very satisfactory progress and it is there to be seen by anybody who wishes to see it. However, there are none so blind as those who will not see.

Now that Telefís Éireann is in operation, extra classes and so on, might be provided through that medium. There is no need to be despondent about the progress so far and we should face the future cheerfully. Nobody expected to obtain results overnight. They will come gradually. It took 300 years or more to banish Irish from parts of the country. We are not worrying because success has not been achieved overnight.

Ní'l sé d'uain agam morán a rá ar an Meastachán seo. Listening to the debate, I started to appreciate the futility of teaching Irish as it is being taught today, without any standardised Irish. I heard Deputies on the other side of the House and on this side of the house speak in Irish and I doubt if one knew what the other was saying. Therefore, it has very forcibly impressed itself on me that a standardised Irish must be taught and should be spoken.

After many years of native Government, many national schools are overcrowded, badly lighted, badly heated, insanitary. There has been a considerable acceleration in the provision of new schools but possibly the reason for the present unsatisfactory position is that the start was made too late. This problem must be tackled realistically if we are to remedy the evils that I see in national school education. Without proper buildings, proper equipment and proper furniture, it is very difficult to give the child the education to which he is entitled and which people expect him to receive.

Some of what I have to say may apply more appropriately to the Estimate for the Office of Public Works but it has to do also with the education of the child. I would insist on central heating in our new schools. It is ridiculous to have a very large room in a new school with a small fireplace at one end. These places resemble refrigerators more than a room where children should get the best education under the best possible circumstances.

National teachers are dealing with children of a very tender and impressionable age. The sordid squalor of some of our national school buildings cannot leave the happiest or the most pleasant impression on the mind of a young child. A child cannot be trained to love beauty if it is brought up in such sordid surroundings.

In the planning of school buildings, the opinion of teachers should be sought since they are the people who use the school and use the equipment in their day-to-day work. They are the people who know the most suitable type of equipment and the most suitable lay-out of the equipment.

I do not for one instant lay any blame at the door of the managers. The managers have their own difficult problems. One of the greatest problems is trying to cut through the red tape when dealing with Departments. The first thing a manager must get is permission from the local authority in relation to the siting of the school. He must get permission from the sanitary authority. After that, he has to deal with both the Office of Public Works and the Department of Education. That roundabout method should be short-circuited in some way. A manager suggested to me that if the Office of Public Works had a branch in each of the provinces, it would help tremendously in expediting the building of new schools.

In all new schools, there should be ample facilities for athletics, games and so on. Physical culture in itself is an important part of education. Games teach youngsters to use their eyes, their ears and their limbs. Above all, games teach them how important it is to co-operate in order to succeed. That lesson is carried through to adult life; they must co-operate to make a success of their lives. Indeed, I believe that the provision of facilities for games and athletics would help to counteract the incidence of juvenile delinquency.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present.

There are many schools in which classes are too large, so large in many cases as to be unmanageable, because of inadequate staffing. When classes are too large there is no time for individual attention. Even correction work becomes a problem. Teaching under such conditions is actually superficial because keeping order takes up so much time. Many schools which benefited by the relief given some years ago by way of reduction of appointment averages and retention averages, but especially retention averages, are now in danger of collapse again. I suggest to the Minister that he should look at the figure of 69.5 average daily attendance, average enrolment, for the purpose of raising a second assistant. It would be worth considering in relation to particular areas where the average in the schools is falling sharply. I suggest the figure might be reduced to justify the retention of a second assistant. Also in the lower category—the 28.5 in relation to the two-teacher school—the position might be examined also. I am sure we all hope that the declining population will rectify itself some day. In the West of Ireland there is a tendency for the population to drop very sharply. It is our earnest hope that that position will rectify itself in the not too distant future.

There is one matter which has been mentioned by almost all speakers so far in this debate. I, too, suggest to the Minister that a national council for educational research should be established. In other countries much valuable work has been done in educational research. Here we have a very high reputation where education is concerned and it is, therefore, rather surprising that no step has been taken so far to establish such a council.

With our entry into the Common Market, a continental language appears absolutely essential. As I said on the Vote for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, there should be some liaison between the Department of Education and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to popularise some continental language, perhaps French, through the medium of television.

The last point which I should like to raise is pensions. Retired national school teachers, with full pensionable service, have to subsist on pensions as low as one-third of the current salary paid to their serving counterparts. The INTO should have the right to demand from the Government such financial provision as will adjust their pensions to a proper proportion of the current salary rates and restore their pensions to their original value. That is the bare minimum that social justice and the public conscience demand. Retired teachers did not contract for a pension of so many pounds per year. They contracted that on their retirement, they would have a guaranteed standard of living on the annual pension to which 50 per cent. of their salary would entitle them.

I conclude by paying tribute to the very enlightened approach the Minister has adopted, since he became Minister, to the carrying out of his duties. I hope he will remember some of the points I have raised.

I should like at the outset to compliment the Minister on the manner in which he presented his Estimate. I am glad to see that, in doing so, he was not influenced by any anti-Irish shoneen expediency. What he did was right, although to many people, it might not appear to be the popular thing to do. He had the gumption to deliver his speech in Irish.

I have quite a number of critical things to say, but, on the other hand, I realise that, in the main, the Minister is not responsible for all the faults. I suggest to him that even at this late stage, he should become more realistic and get out of the time-worn footprints of his predecessors. In many parts of the country, we are still pursuing an educational policy which is no more forward than it was at the time of the Druids, and in many ways is not anything like as forward or as imaginative as the educational system was in the heyday of Clonmacnoise and such places.

There is no use in our hoodwinking ourselves about it: we have got into a rut and we are making no practical effort to get out of it. Something must be wrong when we appear to be the only people in the world who do not desire to march forward and just allow ourselves to be dragged along without doing anything practical to ensure the future. I do not in any way blame the fact that we have decided to ensure the future of the Irish language for the obvious lack of education in the country today. We find that in areas where the children learn fluent Irish, they learn other subjects with equal facility.

So far as I know from experience, and from what I am told by people who should know, learning Irish should prove no hindrance to our advancement in education, but we have decided to pursue a policy that is unrealistic. I do not blame Irish for that, and for the poor results which we are achieving under the type of educational system we are pursuing, but something must be done or we will appear uncivilised in the eyes of the world. We will be 500 years behind. We must be 100 years behind already.

I do not want the kind of education which is aimed purely and simply at achieving something secular. I believe our educational system should be aimed at saving our souls, as well as making it possible for us to earn our livelihood. I am the last man who would like to see anything taken from our Irish way of life, but I am not so foolish as not to realise that if we do not take a more practical attitude towards education, we will still be— many of us have been and now are— the users of the pick and shovel in Great Britain.

A new approach is necessary. Education is, I hope, above politics, but surely there are enough imaginative people in the country to enable us to do something about the backward system we are pursuing. When one travels around the country—and particularly in the west—one is inclined to wonder how there is any education at all. There are schools on which money has not been spent for 50 or 100 years. I know of one school where the teachers have to use umbrellas inside, if it even attempts to rain.

I asked a question today about a school on which practically no improvements have been carried out for the best part of a century. There is scarcely a roof on it. There is no playground attached to it. There are no sanitary facilities of any description, and yet it is masquerading as an educational shrine. I do not blame the Minister for it because that would be like someone else blaming me for everything that is wrong in my constituency, even though I have been only a few months in the Dáil, but it obviously shows how little the Minister's predecessorss did to remedy the defects—and that goes for more Parties than the Minister's Party.

It is a shocking state of affairs that at this stage children who are supposed to be reared with some idea of sanitation facilities and ordinary cleanliness should have to frequent places where no farmer would house his cattle or any other animals. That position is obtaining in many parts of the west today. There is no use in fooling ourselves about it because that is true. Surely it is bad enough to have to see those institutions from the outside but if anyone has the temerity to call into them—he would need a boat if it is raining—they must certainly give him an extraordinary idea of our attitude towards the education of our children.

The Minister must get the money, no matter where he gets it. In view of the fantastic sums of money which are being spent, there should be no reason why he should not be able to get money to provide schools. If the people in the Board of Works have been using that place for sleeping rather than working, the Minister and his colleagues should waken them up and get them to do something. The condition of some of our schools is a disgrace. Some of them which are being replaced are being replaced by completely outdated schools, without any type of sanitation. We are told there is no water, but it rains for five-sixths of the year in the west and surely if a large enough tank were provided, there would be plenty of water.

Equally bad is the fact that many of our western schools are understaffed or not open at all because of lack of staff, and because of the fact that no one seems to make the slightest effort to staff them, some of the schools are closed. Surely these matters must be brought to the notice of someone in the Department. If someone is not doing his duty and drawing attention to these matters, there are other ways of doing it. It is very unfair that any community should be left without educational facilities for its children. The unfortunate thing about this is that it is happening in the Gaeltacht areas where Irish is still revered and spoken, but no teachers are provided. That would not happen in the midlands where Irish is not spoken and where there is no likelihood that it will be.

The school holiday system badly needs revision. It is still as primitive as it was 100 years ago. Seeing that steps are being taken to inquire into the question of altering the dates of Christmas and Easter, there should be somebody in the Department with sufficient intelligence to look into these dates and to alter them.

There is a lot of talk about free primary education but primary education here is not free. There is a system of commercialism being operated here for a number of years past with regard to primary education which does not exist in any other country in the world. Here the textbooks are changed every year. Obviously, somebody gets an idea, puts it into a book, puts the book on the market and has sufficient pull to get it sold in a very remunerative market. In the smaller rural areas, it is not necessary for the textbooks to be changed every year and especially at the present exorbitant prices. Other Deputies must know about this and it is high time the Minister did something about it. The paper in these books must be as good now as it was 50 years ago and if they could last for two years then, they could last for two years now. If the Minister is not going to do something about that, let him see that all the books in the primary schools are free. There is no such thing as a system of free education in this country.

At last—and I think the Minister is responsible for this—we have awakened to the necessity for more scholarships and I hope the Minister will pursue that policy and ensure that more and more become available each year. Secondary education up to a few years ago was very much overlooked, especially in the rural areas. A very low percentage of the people of the rural areas can attend secondary schools in present conditions. If we are to ensure that they will get the secondary education to which they are entitled, a system of scholarships is the only method of giving them a chance to which the poorest and often the wittiest section of the community are entitled.

Up to recent years, vocational education has been almost overlooked. Things are changing now. In Mayo, a progressive committee is trying to erect as many vocational schools as possible but we cannot get a teacher so we are back where we started. The Minister, or somebody in his Department, must be aware that there is a great scarcity of vocational teachers. If the Minister has not done anything to ensure that that position will be remedied in the near future, he should now set out to do so effectively. It is a very wrong state of affairs that a vocational school should be left as a white elephant for years, without anybody teaching in it, or used for some sideline system of education which is practically useless. Before these schools are erected, steps should be taken to ensure that they will be attended and that they will be properly staffed.

At this stage of our existence, a new medium of education, television, has come to the country, but the position seems to be that while the people of Dublin get the benefit of all the modern facilities, the people of the west will be kept in darkness for as long as possible. That seems to have been the policy all through the years and there do not seem to be any substantial changes now. Surely the people of the west of Ireland are as much entitled to these facilities for their children as the people of Dublin. It is a very unfair attitude for any Department not to take all the necessary steps possible to rectify that position. Apart from the entertainment value of television for children, it has tremendous educational possibilities, not only from the point of ordinary subjects but also from the point of view of the propagation of the Irish language which we are all so anxious to see more popular and more commonly spoken.

I think another Minister would be responsible for that and not the Minister for Education.

I hope, when the day comes that we have television in the west, that the Minister responsible for education will accept the responsibility of ensuring that that medium will be used effectively to improve the educational facilities there and that we will not be left in the darkness in which we have been left for the past 40 years. The advance in the educational system in the west over the past 40 years would not be noticeable. I am quite sure that anybody who did a course in a secondary school 40 years ago would quite easily pass the type of examination that is set for the leaving certificate to-day. That is a clear indication of the advance we have made.

I am not blaming the Minister for that, but I would suggest at this late stage he should take effective steps to remedy the situation and also to ensure the more widespread propagation of the Irish language. I think the Minister knows what the position is. One party exploited it in the last general election in a last dying kick to get control of this House and the people gave them their answer. So the Minister now has the gun in his hands.

Mr. O'Donnell

He can shoot it dead.

That is what you would like to do. The fact that it is not understood is not my fault or the Minister's fault. If anybody in this House is sufficiently nationalist, then, in my opinion, he should have no trouble learning his native language. It is a shocking state of affairs that, in 1962, our people are the only people on earth who throw droch-mheas on the language. Fortunately, these people are all on one side of the House.

Ba chóir agus ba cheart dom a labhairt as Gaeilge amháin ar an Meastachán seo ach ós rud é nach dtuigfheadh na Teachtaí go léir mé, agus nach dtuigfheadh an pobal ach an oiread, ní mór dom labhairt as Béarla ar an ócáid seo.

I should first like to speak about the primary schools. I am in a position to speak about them as I spent all my life since I was 21 teaching in rural areas, in city and in town. I worked under the managerial system in all schools, with the exception of an odd one here and there. No primary teacher wants any system but the managerial system. I should like to say that at the outset. It is the best system I know of and a much better system than the system adopted by the vocational committees for appointments. There are, however, faults and great faults attached to it in regard to the building, the upkeep, the heating and cleaning of the schools. A teacher whether in a city school, a rural school or a town school should be in a position to walk into that school, hang up his hat and start to work. That is not so; that is not the position in most of our primary schools. It is most unfair to ask or expect a manager of a poor parish, who has quite sufficient to do to look after the upkeep of his church, of his own house and the curates' houses, to go to the expense required for the proper upkeep of the schools.

Some time ago, suggestions were made about getting the money from the rates and it was objected to, on the ground that it would be the thin end of the wedge towards local control. The money for vocational schools is got from the rates and I do not see what harm that does. It is not the thin end of any wedge. It is not trying to oust anyone from any honorary position of manager and I do not see why the same thing should not apply to primary schools. It may be that there would be an objection, if the money were collected from the rates, that the borough councils, the county councils or corporations would have a say in the sitting or the building of the schools.

If there were an objection to that, there is another way out of the difficulty. There could be a central fund controlled by the Minister and the Board of Works and when schools are needed in any area, a rate could be struck, as it is struck for vocational education, and if there were any local objection, or any objection on the part of the managers in regard to having the local authorities do that, the money could be kept in a central fund controlled, as I say, by the Minister and the Board of Works and let them be responsible for the building, repair, upkeep, heating, cleaning and painting and all other necessary work.

Until you have that position, what influence can be exerted on the children? Some members spoke about getting a boat to go into the school and that kind of thing. Although I worked in rural areas for over 20 years and worked under conditions which were not of the best, I can say that the influence on the children of some of the buildings I worked in was nil. Apart from their comfort and such things, they were no help in the way of letting the children see something they should have and should have in their own homes. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that he should see the people in authority and put that matter up to them. It would be for the benefit of the children, the schools and all concerned.

As I say, there is no question of interfering with managerial control. After all my years, I still think it is the best system and far better than the system of appointment which we have in the vocational schools and I am a member of a vocational educational committee. I know there has been a vast improvement in schools but it is pitiful to see a new school being built and left in a filthy condition, where not even a rub of paint is given to doors and windows and where in some cases children either before or after school, have to sweep the floor and light the fires. Sometimes it happens to be the work of the teacher. People would not believe that in some cases teachers, apart from helping to buy books, have sometimes to purchase fuel so that they can have heat. I would suggest to the Minister that he make inquiries into those matters and consult with the people in authority. If he succeeds in getting done what I say should be done, he will be doing a good day's work.

Our primary school teachers should have university training. It is a long time since some teachers, since dead, God rest them—they were before their time—suggested that teachers should have university training, but when a certain section in this country got a famous gentleman to go over to see Mr. Bevin to prevent the primary teachers of Ireland having university training, we understand the position. The idea was to keep them serfs. It is hard to believe that. Over 50 years ago, a certain legal luminary in this country crossed the water to prevent the Irish primary teachers from getting university education. Some of our teachers now get training in Trinity College. I wish that we could provide the same for the majority of the teachers in the National University. It could be done.

We have three watertight education compartments—primary, vocational and secondary. If you spend a year in one, it will not be counted as service if you transfer to another. My belief is that there should be a transfer of teachers to a particular school. If they are more suitable for primary schools, let them stay there. If they are more suitable for vocational schools, then transfer them to the vocational school, or even to the secondary school. That should be the rule. Men I know in the city, who are more fit to be university professors than primary teachers, are in secondor third-rate schools in this city. If the system I suggest were adopted, that would not happen and the work of such a man or woman would not be wasted.

I had to go down the country to a funeral. On that account, I was unable to be here when the Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce came up. I would ask the Minister for Education to approach the Minister for Industry and Commerce in regard to a matter about which I wish to speak. I was amazed, listening to the Minister answering a question the other day, to hear, now that the Government are giving grants to people to start industries here, that the Minister has no power to locate them in any particular place. That is precisely where industry would be of help. It could be of help in the Gaeltacht and such areas. In my view, only lip service has been paid to the Irish language over the past 40 years. Nothing has been done. From the highest people in political life to the ordinary member, nothing but lip service to the language has been paid.

We pay money for industries and we give money to people to start industries but they will not go to the western seaboard. In such cases I think the Minister for Education should impress on the Minister for Industry and Commerce and upon the Government that if they want to keep the people in the Gaeltacht area, which is the fountain head of the Irish language, they should start industries there.

That argument is irrelevant on this Estimate.

The Minister for Education is responsible for the restoration of the Irish language. As a means of restoring the language, he should suggest to his colleagues what should be done in order that work may be provided for the people who speak Irish and keep them in the Gaeltacht and not have the Gaeltacht in Huddersfield and other parts of England.

The Minister for Education has no responsibility. In any event, there is a Minister for the Gaeltacht, as well as a Minister for Education.

It is the Minister for Education and not the Minister for the Gaeltacht who is responsible for the Irish language, I venture to suggest. When the Estimate for the Department of the Gaeltacht comes up, I shall suggest that something should be done in that regard to keep the people there.

I now want to deal with the work in the primary schools. I do not think we have in this country a more devoted body of men and women than the primary teachers, north and south. I say that not because I was one myself but because I know their work and I know the amount of time they give helping boys and girls to win scholarships. They do that free. Time does not count as far as those teachers are concerned. They do not consider time and a half, double time or overtime. They do it in the interest of the children who come to their schools.

There was one thing with which I personally was very dissatisfied, that is, the removal of the highly efficient rating. The teachers were very dissatisfied with it. I know it was not the fault of the Department of Education; it was the fault of the Department which controls education. I understand there was an unwritten rule that only 25 per cent. or 33 per cent. of the teachers in any particular area could be highly efficient. That is not on paper but it was said, and said authoritatively. I have no proof otherwise for it. From the point of view of the schools and the children, it was a retrograde step, but from the point of view of the teachers, who work and continue to work and found they could not be rated highly efficient, it was very disappointing. It drove one friend of mine to the lunatic asylum.

In this city, we are to have a school of technology which, in a sense, will be a national college. At Cathal Brugha Street, there is domestic training for young girls. We are in a poor position here at present. We have just completed Bolton Street at a cost of practically £750,000. The school of technology at Kevin Street, which has to be built, will cost over £1,000,000. The school of technology at Rathmines and the school at Ringsend must be extended. In respect of those extra schools of technology which need to be built in this city, and others which need extension, I hope the Minister will see his way to provide extra money so that we can go ahead with the necessary work to be carried out in such institutions. I would ask him to bear in mind that at present students from all over the country, apprentices of all kinds, attend such schools in this city. At present Dublin Corporation are providing the proceeds at 1/6d. in the £ as a contribution towards vocational education.

The secondary schools are doing very good work but these schools are for the education of children who will later join the professions or the Government service. There is a wastage at the moment because of the number of children who spend only a year or two in secondary schools and who do not continue even long enough to obtain the intermediate certificate. Something should be done to prevent that so that children who are more fitted for technical education will go to vocational schools and thus will not take up for a year or two the places in secondary schools which children more suited to secondary education might occupy.

I had not got the time to read all the Minister had to say in introducing the Estimate but I gather from it that a vast amount of money is being spent on education. In this respect, I would emphasise that the countries who have been getting on best, economically and otherwise, are those which have spent most on education, those which are not afraid to lay out vast sums of money so that children who will afterwards be the adult citizens will be able to use what they have learned in the schools for the benefit of their country.

I submit that the school-leaving age should be raised to 15 years and that we should have free education for all up to 16 years of age. One Deputy spoke on this matter a few moments ago and I would point out that at the moment we have children leaving primary schools at 12½ and 13 years of age and then going to either vocational or secondary schools. The relevant Act states that there is free education for all up to the age of 14 years but obviously that is not true in the case of those children I mention. I repeat that I think it is absolutely necessary the school-leaving age should be raised and that education should be free for all up to the age of 16 if we are to compete.

I hesitate to mention the two words that have been repeated so often in this House in recent weeks. I hesitate to mention what may happen in Europe because we know nothing about what will happen in the economic, political and legal fields. I am glad to see that our schools here, particularly our vocational schools, have already started classes in European languages, French in particular. I heard one Deputy complaining about the appointment of principals to those schools elsewhere. I can tell the Minister that there have been no complaints about any such appointments in Dublin over the past 12 years. We appoint only the best.

I would ask the Minister to consider the fact that not enough provision is being made for the treatment and accommodation of mentally handicapped children. I know a case of a child one of whose parents came to me a few months ago to say that her boy, who was down the country in a school, had reached the age at which they could not do anything further for him in the school and he had to leave. I got in touch with the authorities and as far as I could gather, the only place where he could be accommodated was one of the off-shoots of Grangegorman —Portrane or some similar institution. No parent wants to put a child of 15 or 16 into such an establishment and I would ask the Minister to consider that matter very seriously with a view to providing proper schools for such children.

Mention was made of school books. I feel sure the publishing companies would be only too glad if schoolbooks were left as they are from year to year. It is a fact that in some cases, mathematics and readers in particular, a few extra pages might be added rendering the books obsolete so that children succeeding to the same classes afterwards cannot use them. Something should be done to rectify that. There should be one reader for each class and then as many story books as are needed. There should be one reader in English and one in Irish and those books could be handed down to succeeding classes of children. That was done long ago.

Education at that time in some subjects was far superior to what it is now. I remember teaching under the old system. I had boys in sixth and seventh class and I can safely say that, with the exception of Latin, they were of the intermediate standard of the present day. At that time the one book could be handed down. Some Deputies may remember the old book. We should be able to have something like that, though, perhaps, a little more nationalistic in outlook.

When the Television Authority have found their feet—we must give them a chance; they have done a good job so far—they should make the fullest use possible of television and radio for the benefit of schools. What I have said has not been said in any spirit of carping criticism. I do not believe in that. I believe in drawing attention to a fault in a spirit of improving matters and anything I have said has been said in that spirit.

It is time this House and the country generally faced up to the fact that we need a radical reform of our education system. In fact, our education system at present is based, in a very marked way, on class distinctions. The undoubted fact exists that for the child of wealthy parents there are good educational facilities here, but for the child of poor parents the facilities are very meagre. It is time we endeavoured to reach a position where there is equality of opportunity for all our children to avail of the educational services here. That is an objective which, if we desire it, we should be prepared to accept the means to achieve.

The number of scholarships available here are pitiably meagre. The number of children who go on from national schools to secondary schools is only 22 per cent. of the possible number that could go. The number of pupils who go further to university level is a very small percentage indeed. The fact remains that secondary education and university education are available only to the children of parents who are well off. There are only a little over 100 scholarships at university level awarded throughout the country. It is quite obvious that part of the reform necessary is the granting of considerably increased scholarships to secondary schools and universities. I do not think we should be satisfied in passing legislation, as was done last year, to increase the number of scholarships and leave the situation at that. Even if the local authorities increase, as they have done, the number of scholarships available, the situation still exists that there will be many who could benefit from secondary and university education who will not qualify and, secondly, that there are not at present sufficient places to provide for the pupils who need them.

I do not wish to be discourteous to the Minister, but I feel there is a certain amount of complacency in pointing out that there has been an increase in the number of secondary school pupils in the last few years and then suggesting that if this increase continues it is hoped by the end of this decade to have over 100,000 pupils attending secondary schools. That is a statistical sum which can be worked out, but if the steps are not taken to ensure an expansion in the number of schools and teachers, then the increase which has occurred in the last few years will in fact decline and the position is likely to become static.

The problems of staffing secondary schools and of building new schools will have to be faced up to by the Government of the day. We have here a system which is admirably suited to our needs. I refer to the denominational system of education. That system can be maintained, but it is obvious we have to expand greatly the number of teachers and schools and that the State will have to undertake the provision of buildings for secondary schools. We are extremely fortunate here in that a great burden of finance has been taken off the shoulders of the State by the religious orders. I feel that situation is not one that can be maintained for much longer and that the State will have to increase the provision for secondary education. I doubt if there is any country in the world that has to spend so little from its central funds on secondary education as we do because of the assistance the country gets from the religious orders. With the undoubted increased demand and need for teachers and schools, it is quite obvious the State will have to bear this increased burden.

There should of course be some programme, some plan, for increasing our educational facilities. There is none, so far as I am aware. There should be some programme and plan for increasing the number of university places we have, not just in Dublin but in Cork and Galway as well. While we are all aware there are proposals for building new university premises in Belfield, the impression undoubtedly is left—and justifiably— that there is no proper planning of expansion of the number of places in universities and that no adequate steps are being taken to ensure that in the next ten years there will be a rapid expansion of the number of places available. Such expansion, of course, means increased building. It also means the expansion of University staffs. These are matters the State has got to face up to in that the moneys to pay for them will have to be met from public funds.

It is little use for us to pay lip service to the desire to give adequate facilities to all our children if in fact we take no steps to further that aim. I think I am justified in saying there is a great deal of complacency at present about the educational system which has developed over the years. It is proper that tribute should be paid to the hard work of hard-pressed teachers who, sometimes under extremely difficult conditions, in bad and overcrowded classrooms, have to carry on what is very frequently a dedicated life. There is still a great deal of overcrowding in national schools and there is an inadequate number of vocational and secondary schools. Such as there are, are available, by and large, to the children of the wealthier people and the child of poor parents is faced almost inevitably with the ending of his formal education on reaching the school leaving age in the national school. It is a corollary of all this that we have to face up to the fact that the school leaving age must be raised.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

I very much doubt if there is a school manager or any person having anything to do with children leaving school or going into vocational schools who will not agree that the children leave at an age when they are too immature, when their education is far from complete and when they are not properly qualified to face the rigours of life which they so often have to face on leaving school. I am quite satisfied that there is a large consensus of opinion among managers of national schools, teachers in vocational schools and other people working in the field of education that when leaving the national schools children are not adequately prepared for the problems they have to face.

It is also known that many children who go on to vocational schools from national schools are not ready for the type of training and study that is done in vocational schools. Many parents who want to give their children further education in order to advance them as best they can and because they cannot afford to give them a secondary education, send them from a national school to attend full-time classes in a vocational school. Many such children are not capable of assimilating what is available for them in the vocational school.

It is important, therefore, that these facts are stated and reiterated time and time again so that the authorities responsible and ultimately public opinion will become convinced of the desirability of raising the school leaving age in order to ensure that those of our children who do not get any further formal education than what they get at the national school will get a further year there before they have to face out into life. This is not just an educational problem. It is also a religious problem and those who are concerned with this aspect of the child's education will be the first to agree that a child who leaves school at such a tender age would benefit from a further year at school in order to further his religious education.

These are the real problems we should be tackling and discussing. There is a great deal of empty talk about the higher standard of living. There is a great deal of play with figures showing nominal increases in the national income but the reality is that in the things that matter, in the important things like education, there has been but very small improvement and the system has remained largely unchanged for the last 30 or 40 years.

In connection with the reform of our educational system the teaching of Irish is a very important aspect. The problem of teaching Irish can be discussed from many angles. It can be discussed from the point of view of its success as a method of reviving the Irish language as the vernacular. It can also be discussed from the point of view of its effects on our educational system. From both points of view any rational person must admit that the methods we have been using for the last 30 years have proved a failure. Since we first instituted the policy of reviving Irish through our national and secondary schools, five generations of school children have gone out from those schools. If that policy were effective we should all be speaking Irish today. It is demonstrable beyond argument that the system which we have adopted for the last 30 years has been a failure.

We started off here with the belief, a belief which was shared by many of the best people in the field of education, that the language could be revived through the medium of the schools. That belief has proved to be wrong. I do not think it is necessary to labour this undoubted fact but it is necessary that the corollary from this fact is accepted by our people. There is too much prejudice and too much emotion involved when we come to discuss the teaching of Irish in the schools. If one speaks against the present method, one is immediately dubbed, as I have been dubbed, a "Castle Today". Those of us who oppose the present method are regarded as traitors to our nation. We are dubbed "anti-Irish". But in my very strongly held belief it is those who refuse to accept the facts who are damaging the best interests of the language and of the nation's children.

Some years ago, an article by a very eminent psychologist in this country was published in Studies. It is an article to which I have referred in former debates on Education Estimates. It is an article which I have never seen either controverted or contradicted. It is an article which makes abundantly clear the fact that, from the point of view of the psychologist, great damage is done to young children going into national schools from homes in which the vernacular is English; great damage, the psychologist holds, is done to the child by the present method of teaching Irish at the tender infant age. This is a powerful and a strong argument. It is an argument of which we should take cognisance. If it is sustainable—and I have never seen it contradicted or controverted—then it is a fact.

This very eminent psychologist is a fluent speaker of Irish and, I understand, an ardent supporter of the movement to revive the Irish language as the vernacular. This very eminent psychologist establishes the fact that, by teaching Irish in infant classes, we are damaging our children, many of them at a very tender age. An obvious reform which can be introduced immediately is to cease teaching a second language in national schools to children of tender years whose home language is English. I do not think we need wait for any report from any commission of inquiry to bring about this undoubtedly desirable reform. If, in fact, it were possible by using the schools to restore the Irish language and thereby achieve some nationally desirable end, though in doing so we had to be prepared to accept some of the less desirable consequences, some of the drawbacks, and some of the snags of such a policy, then it might be reasonable to implement such a policy. But let there be no doubt about the fact that, the Irish language having been given such prominence in our schools, it has adversely affected other aspects of education in both national schools and secondary schools. A price is being paid for this policy in that the children are not getting the education they should get in other fields. That price might, as I say, be worth paying if, in fact, the policy were a success; if, in fact, one could say, after thirty years' experience, that now 70 or 80 per cent, of our people are Irish speaking. But the price is not worth paying when all the evidence before us establishes that the system we have adopted to revive the language in the schools and through the schools is a failure; and our children should not be required to pay the price they have had to pay, and are paying, for the unbalanced amount of education in other fields in order to support a system which has proved ineffective.

There is another aspect of this problem which I think well worth mentioning. The sufferers by this policy are not the children of the well-to-do. The sufferers from this policy are the children of the poor. The child of the well-to-do parent goes to kindergarten, preparatory and junior school, then on to secondary school, finishing perhaps at university. He is able to garner the benefits of a good education. The child of the poor parent has only up to the school-leaving age of fourteen to get for the rest of his life whatever he can be given by way of education. He is the child most grievously affected by the policy around which our whole educational system is orientated in an endeavour to revive the Irish language. It is the child of poor parents, it is the poor child who has got to go out into life and earn his bread and butter at the age of fourteen who is suffering under this iniquitous system.

It is time we faced up to facts. It has been said that, in many spheres of activity, we are becoming more mature. It has been said we are now becoming more rational. But there are still a number of Sacred Cows grazing in our national pastures; and there are still those among us who are afraid to touch them. I say categorically that it is these people, blind to realities, who are not the true patriots. It is these people, who are trying to maintain a system, which has obviously proved detrimental to our people, who have not the true interests of this country at heart.

It is a very welcome sign that so much interest has been taken in the course of this debate, and on other occasions, in the problem of mentally handicapped children. This is a problem we have had with us almost since the dawn of history, but it is a problem in relation to which no real effort was made up to recently. It is only proper that I should say from my own experience that I have had nothing but understanding, co-operation and helpfulness from the Minister and his officials; and what is true for me personally is also true in relation to all those working in the field of mental handicap. It is, I think, but proper that this spirit of co-operation, this desire to help, the anxiety not to raise obstacles, should be published here. Only in the last few years has a start been made in tackling this problem.

While I pay tribute to the Minister and his officials for their help and co-operation, I must also stress that a great deal more needs to be done. From what the Minister has said one gathers inferentially that the problem with regard to the mildly or moderately handicapped is not one of gigantic proportions. The overall problem is admittedly a very large one and dealing adequately with the number of dull and retarded children in our national schools presents difficulties. A secondary problem is the position created by the moderately and mildly handicapped child who needs a special school.

It can be said, however, that with 12 or 14 special day centres throughout the country we could go a long way towards relieving some of the distress that exists at present. Twelve or 14 day centres situated in the principal cities and towns would go a long way towards helping to solve the problem of mildly or moderately handicapped children, who do not need institutional treatment and are capable of attending a day centre. Such a problem is not one which should present insuperable difficulties. That is not by any means the end of the difficulties which would have to be faced in dealing with the care of the mentally handicapped child. I suggest as a start, it would give undoubted assistance to many children and if 12 more day centres were established in our principal towns, a great deal of good would be done at not very great cost to the State.

Deputy Barron has rightly referred to the agonising problem when the child reaches the age when these schools can no longer keep them. The awful predicament in which the parents find themselves is that there is nowhere for that child to go but to a mental home. Many of our mental homes contain young people who need not be there—young adults, who could be in sheltered workshops, who could be living at home or in small groups; young children who could be leading a full life, young adults who could be helping the community.

The problem is not insuperable. It is not one which would break the back of the taxpayer. It is a question of organisation and the provision of sheltered workshops in conjunction with day centres. It is something which must come in this country. Take, for example, Holland. Undoubtedly Holland is wealthier than this country but none the less it is not a country of great resources. Holland has devised a remarkable system in this connection and it is an example to us here.

At present, a Commission is sitting which is dealing with this problem. It is a very able Commission. There are people of great experience on it. I feel that the country will benefit greatly from its report. I do not think it is necessary for the Government to wait until the Committee reports. It would be possible to make a start now by establishing day centres in the principal towns and the principal areas of population and by making provision for the sheltered workshops, which must come here.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

It is quite obvious that the ordinary national school regulations cannot be applied to these special schools. The Minister and his Department have shown great leniency in the way in which these Departmental regulations are interpreted in their application to national schools for children who are mentally handicapped. The fact remains that a completely new approach is necessary to these types of day centres which must be established here. The ordinary Departmental regulations are completely inapplicable to children who are unable in many cases to assimilate the very rudimentary elements of knowledge and language. I feel it would be a comparatively simple matter to make it quite clear that the ordinary Departmental regulations concerning the curriculum in these schools do not apply. It would be a simple matter for certain general principles to be established as to what is to be taught in these schools and then to leave it to the teachers who have been recognised to apply these principles in a rational and fair way.

It is quite obvious that an attempt in these schools—some of them are now national schools—to have the Departmental regulations applied is an attempt that cannot be effected. In these circumstances, it would be preferable if the situation were faced up to and it were decided that special regulations of a very general nature should apply. A start was made last year in the training of national school teachers in the field of mental handicap. It is a start which is to be welcomed. To some extent, the situation has eased in as much as there are now some teachers in this country who have national school training and who also have had some training in the field of mental handicap.

The situation does exist that only 12 such teachers each year can take this course. It is to be hoped that that number can be increased considerably. The problem arises as to what type of person is suitable for these types of special schools for the mentally handicapped child. There can be no doubt that many national school teachers who have had training in national school training centres, who have had experience in teaching and who show a desire and interest in this particular work, do turn out to be excellent teachers in this field. It is desirable that those who would like to specialise in this should be given every opportunity to do so.

I do not think the Department should be too restrictive as to the type of training which would be recognised by the Department as a proper qualification for qualifying as a trained teacher under the Departmental regulations. The fact exists that many persons engaged in this field may not have a national school training but may be most suitable for the work and have experience much more valuable in many cases than training in a training centre. I feel, therefore, it would be a desirable step if people who have had experience, people who have had perhaps some special training in this field, but who would not have had training as national teachers, were recognised for the purpose of salaries and increments as fully qualified national teachers.

The progress made in these fields is nothing like what is required. The position at the moment is that there are large waiting lists for admission to schools which look after the mentally handicapped child.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
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