Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 9 Dec 1976

Vol. 295 No. 3

Vote 29: Office of the Minister for Education.

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1976, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education (including Institutions of Science and Art), for certain miscellaneous educational and cultural services and for payment of sundry grants-in-aid.

The Supplementary Estimates are required in the following Votes:

Vote 29—Office of the Minister for Education,

Vote 30—Primary Education,

Vote 31—Secondary Education,

Vote 34—Higher Education.

In the case of two of the four Votes, only token Supplementary Estimates are involved. These are Vote 29— Office of the Minister for Education and Vote 30—Primary Education. The necessity for the Supplementary Estimates in the case of Vote 29 arises from the need to obtain parliamentary approval for an increase in the provision in Grant-In-Aid subhead A4 for Bord an Choláiste Náisiúnta Ealáine is Deartha.

The purpose of the token Supplementary Estimate for Vote 30— Primary Education—is in connection with the opening of an additional subhead C9—Grants towards the cost of painting of schools. The additional amounts required for the relevant subheads in Votes 29 and 30 are fully matched by savings in other subheads of the Votes.

The additional amount of £11,000 for subhead A4 of Vote 29 is required to meet the increase in cost in 1976 for Bord an Choláiste Ealáine is Deartha in respect of the Interim National Wage Agreement with effect from 1st August, 1976, and increased employers' contribution under the Social Welfare Acts as from 5th April, 1976.

The opening of a new subhead C9 is required in Vote 30—Primary Education—to enable recoupment to be made of certain expenditure on the painting of schools in the period 1st January to 31st March, 1975. The new scheme of capitation grants for National Schools came into effect as from 1st January, 1975, and incorporated the special scheme for recoupment of costs in respect of the painting of schools as well as other schemes of grants.

A circular issued to school managers in relation to the financial year 1974-75 had, however, referred to 31st March, 1975, as the latest date by which certain painting projects should be completed for the purpose of recoupment of the cost under the scheme. Some school managers have claimed that under the terms of this circular they should be allowed recoupment of expenses incurred by them in the period 1st January to 31st March, 1975, in respect of the painting of their schools. It has been decided, as an exceptional matter, to make provision for such recoupment by way of this Supplementary Estimate through the opening of a new subhead C9 for £30,000 in Vote 30.

A Supplementary Estimate for a nett amount of £473,000 is requested in the case of Vote 31—Secondary Education. An excess of £3,100,000 in subhead B—Incremental Salary Grant —is reduced by savings of £2,277,000 in other subheads of the Vote and an increase of £350,000 in Appropriations-in-Aid. The savings in other subheads include £700,000 on subhead H2—Secondary, Comprehensive and Community Schools—Building Grants and Capital Costs.

The excess in subhead B is mainly attributable to the following factors—

(i) the interim national wage agreement;

(ii) transfer of married women from the single to the married salary scale;

(iii) recommendations from the Teachers' Conciliation Council formally accepted by the Ministers subsequent to 1st January, 1976;

(iv) a greater than anticipated increase in the number of teachers in receipt of incremental salary and of allowances in respect of posts of responsibility.

The cost of implementation of the national wage agreement is estimated at £815,000.

Women teachers on marriage have been transferred to the married salary scale with effect from 1st January, 1976. The cost in 1976 of this amendment of the rules for the payment of incremental salary to secondary teachers is estimated at £440,000.

The recommendations already referred to from the Teachers' Conciliation Council are estimated to cost £800,000 in 1976. They are as follows:

(a) An amendment of the provisions for the calculation of the points rating for the purpose of the scheme of posts of responsibility;

(b) Revised placing on the incremental salary scale in respect of secondary school teachers appointed on probation prior to 1st July, 1968.

The greater than anticipated increases in the number of teachers in receipt of incremental salary and allowances in respect of posts of responsibility would have resulted from a combination of factors, which include a continuing growth in the number of pupils in the schools, the introduction of more comprehensive curricula in many schools, and fall in the average number of hours per week of teaching service by individual teachers, with a consequent increase in the number of teachers employed.

The total excess of £3,100,000 in subhead B is reduced by £2,277,000 representing savings on other subheads of the Vote. These savings are mainly in the subheads—

A1—Capitation Grants,

A2—Supplemental Grants in lieu of fees to Secondary Schools,

H2—Secondary, Comprehensive and Community Schools—Building Grants and Capital Costs.

Provision for an increase in the capitation grants and in the supplemental grant in lieu of tuition fees had been tentatively made in subheads A1 and A2. In the light of the overall financial situation, including the additional cost of salaries, it was subsequently not found feasible to introduce such increases in the grants.

In relation to the saving in subhead H2, it should be explained that this saving does not reflect a cut back on the building of community or secondary schools and that, in fact, an expanded programme of community school building is planned to commence next year, providing for a total of 10,000 new places. Of the total saving, approximately £500,000 represents the cost of sites selected for community schools where the legal formalities for the transfer of the site to the Minister will not have been completed before the end of the financial year.

The remainder of the saving results from delays in completing the various planning procedures for some schools, i.e. working drawings, bills of quantities, tender documents, contractors' performance bond. Because of the time factor of approximately three years involved between the commencement of planning of a school and its final completion it is difficult to make accurate annual financial estimates.

The additional amounts required for subheads A1 and A2 of Vote 34 are mainly for the purpose of meeting the additional costs arising from the Interim National Wage Agreement and the increase in the Social Welfare employers' contributions.

I take it we are debating the four Votes together, Votes Nos. 29 to 34 and will have separate votes if necessary.

Yes. The first thing I have to do, which is a pleasant duty, is to welcome the new Minister. I look forward to co-operating with him and criticising his actions, when necessary, hopefully for the benefit of education. It is ave and with every ave there is a vale. I must also, on this first public occasion in the Dáil, bid farewell to the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Burke, who is now a European Commissioner with nine countries, in some field at least, the object of his care.

I regret that since 1973 there has only been one full Estimate debate on Education. I also regret that White Papers, Green Papers and prelegislative documents on education were promised and that we have not seen any White Paper, Green Paper or pre-legislative document yet. With regard to the minutiae of the Supplementary Estimates I would like to say that when the Estimates proper came before the House I asked for the technicality of a token Estimate so that any debate would be on the broadest possible lines. However, these are actually termed Supplementary Estimates and this imposes certain restrictions on debate.

I am glad that the Minister has experience of business and commercial life, because this will help him in dealing with the hard-faced men of the Department of Finance, whose interference is visible in the Supplementary Estimates before us. With regard to Vote 29, I want to refer to the question of capital expenditure for Bord an Choláiste Náisiúnta Ealáine is Deartha. Perhaps the Minister might be able to refer to it in his reply. There was some trouble a few years ago in this regard. I want to know whether the money allotted some time ago for capital service in the National College of Art and Design has been spent.

In relation to Vote 30, as far as I can make out the document is a fraud. What we have is the transfer of £30,000 to a new subhead, C9, to cover those cases where school managers were caught for expenses incurred in the painting of schools just at the changeover from the old system to the new system of funding, and this is proper. In the document we have before us it says that subhead C9 was set up and £30,000 allotted. Underneath that it says: "Less the saving on subhead C5." Subhead C5 is the subhead which provides for the new system, that is the £6 per pupil to be supplemented by £1.50 per pupil by the local community. We voted for that under subhead C5, £3,800,000.

I understand that £3,800,000 minus £29,990 will not be spent and I want to know if I am right in that deduction. If all of that money is not being spent, this document is misleading. The document appears to say that £3,800,000 will be spent on the operating costs of national schools except for £29,990 which is the saving mentioned in this document. I want to know if this is true. Am I right in thinking that almost another £500,000 is being taken off that sum? Obviously the Minister for Education, knowing that we are in an inflationary situation, felt that £6 in 1975 should be increased for 1976, because there were two burdens of inflation, roughly 20 per cent and 18 per cent. If the grants were increased per capita by £1, which would be roughly 16 per cent, it would bring the 1975 figure roughly up to the figure that we passed in the Estimate earlier this year.

I think the cold, clammy hands of the Department of Finance got at that subhead. This is why I am hopeful that the Minister will set his stern face against this type of thing, because the people who are heating, painting and maintaining schools have to live with inflation. If this subhead is being raided not merely for the £30,000 under the new subhead C9 but by £500,000, I would oppose this and even make the House vote on it. Everybody knows that that type of operating cost—fuel, painting, and so on—is increasing. Everybody knows that inflation this year is 18 per cent and last year was about 20 per cent. I would like to compliment the forward budgeting of the Department of Education. I regret that, if money had to be got from the Education Estimate, this fund had to be raided. I submit that this page here does not show the truth and that the facts are not here.

Another possible use rather than an all-round £1 per pupil increase would be a positive discrimination in favour of the smaller schools, which are finding it very difficult to cope on the grant. I get letters and every rural Deputy gets letters about the difficulty of small schools who got £6 or £240 altogether, plus £1.50 or £60, to do this kind of job properly. There could be discrimination in favour of these schools to make it possible for the management to keep them adequately. I look forward to hearing the Minister's comment on that. I think I am right in my interpretation of it. If I am right, it is a disgrace. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not an exercise that should commend itself to any Department, least of all to the Department of Education.

On Vote 31, Secondary Education, the Minister said there has been a saving on capitation grants of £762,000 and a saving of £470,000 on grants in lieu of fees. I cannot understand this. Secondary schools financing is difficult at the moment and parents are asked to help because State finances are inadequate. It strikes me it would not require an unnecessarily high level of ingenuity on the part of the Department to be able to spend on the schools the savings of £762,000 and £470,000 respectively. They know perfectly well that money is needed. If they have children going to school they know that the schools, not for the sake of just gathering in money, are asking parents to make voluntary contributions.

There is a saving of £60,000 on science grants. The activities of the savers are more than sinister. Here one would have thought that it would not take any great ingenuity again to be able to dispense this money to the schools to improve the subjects covered by these grants.

I come now to something that I mentioned before. It is yet another saving under subhead A.4—Grant for Irish and Bilingual Schools. The original estimate was for £110,000. The saving is £75,000. I am very angry about this one. It is a nitpicking operation. I would hope there is not, although there are people who are very suspicious about this, any anti-Irish trend developing. I ask the Minister to be sensitive on that point when he is administering his new office. I ask him to squash any such trend if he finds it. The schools in question saw the original estimate and they spent the money thinking they would get the amount specified because of their special status. They are now in a parlous position. When the Department of Finance came down, as it obviously did, like a ton of bricks on education the Department should have told them, in certain aspects anyway, to go to hell, that they were maintaining the original estimate. This one should certainly have been maintained. These schools have their own difficulties. I know because I worked in one of them. They have difficulties about textbooks and varying standards in the pupils. Sometimes they have to pay more money to bring pupils up to the required standard. It is nothing short of a disgrace that this particular estimate was tampered with, substantially tampered with, and there is a grave moral obligation on the Minister and his Department to see to it that the cut is restored with all possible speed.

Tá ceist ar an gClár agam mar gheall air seo agus is dócha go mbeidh an tAire ag caint tamall fada ar an gceist sin ag Tráth na gCeist inniu. Tá súil agam go mbeidh freagra sásúil aige don Teach agus dúinn go léir ar an gceist sin.

Subhead D deals with the publication of Irish textbooks. Here, again, there is a saving of £30,000. I raised here before the question of an Irish publication of high quality and considerable magnitude for which I think the Department has a certain moral responsibility because the person who was publishing it was led to believe there would be Department of Education support for it. He spent a good deal of money on the venture. He employed secretarial staff and so on. I mention this because I am slightly suspicious when something gets the hammer in an area in which there is a particular interest in the Irish language.

We had a considerable quarrel here about the drop in courses for teachers and I am glad to see the money was increased. I regret to say there is a slight reduction in it again now. It is called a saving. It is reminiscent of the loss of an organ in an operation. The whole operation is the Department of Finance giving orders to the Department of Education and, as a result of those orders, the Department of Education has to cut off vital limbs from its own service.

Subheads H.1 and H.2 deal with comprehensive and community schools. I am glad the Minister said there was no thought or conviction on his part that these schools should not be built and developed but there is a serious so-called saving on subhead H.2 of £700,000. The saving under subhead H.1 is £35,000. I am reluctant to use the word "saving" because it is not necessarily a saving. It is something taken away which would not be taken away because it was necessary and needed where it was. On subhead H.2 there is a saving of £700,000. The Minister referred to this. This whole business of saving on capital costs should be examined on a broader level.

I am confined to my brief here. In the most recent Central Bank report it was pointed out in regard to capital expenditure—and that is what we are dealing with here—that the Minister for Finance envisaged a 24.4 per cent increase for 1976, and at the end of September it was 1.2. There seemed to have been a conscious Government decision to cut capital expenditure, and we have been all the time in this House demanding the kind of expenditure that was creative. In a situation where unemployment is so high and the employment content here is so high, in the building of schools and so on, it is nothing short of a tragedy that this cutting of capital services should take place in the Department of Education, apart altogether from capital expenditure which is actually needed, and needed as a bare minimum for the running of a school.

Let me give an example to the House, and it is relevant to subhead H.2 here. There is a comprehensive school in Cootehill in my own constituency. There has been a refusal to replace staff. Tiles in the roof of the gymnasium or assembly hall—it is one of these multi-purpose halls which can be used for physical education, drama and so on—were removed because, being flimsy, they were damaged. They have not been replaced. There are huge unprotected lamps hanging dangerously out of the ceiling. Furthermore, there is no adequate playing pitch at this school. Two basketball courts were promised and they have not been provided. A plot of land is required for the adequate teaching of agricultural science, again capital expenditure which is necessary for the proper running of the school. Equipment for the biology laboratory is necessary. There was an additional room which was supposed to have a partition which would enable the people organising the classes to conduct two classes or one class when it suited. The partition was not provided. The school is looking for these things. The parents have contacted me about these things. There should be no question of snooping around looking for a place to cut off a few pounds when essentials like that are required for a school. I could go on and on, but I want to indicate that there has been an attack made on education and it will have to be repulsed; otherwise education will become very much the poor relation in Government expenditure.

I referred in passing to the employment content. There are many people looking for jobs. Here are areas where jobs could be provided, where services would be supplied to schools and people could be earning money providing the roofs, pitches, basketball courts and so on.

There is no mention at all of vocational education, and I am very sorry that there is not. I have had letters recently from the students in Bolton Street who say their classes have had to be suspended there because teachers have not been appointed. All the metalwork teachers who were trained last year have not yet got jobs, although there have been vacancies in schools for metalwork teachers that have not been sanctioned. Again this is a serious position for education.

On Vote 34 which is mainly concerned with An t-Udarás um Ard Oideachas, I would like to hear something from the Minister about what he conceives to be the role and function of the Higher Education Authority. I have no up-to-date information —I am not blaming the Minister necessarily for this—about what is going on in education from reports by the Department. This problem will have to be faced and faced fairly soon, because always the reports were very late coming out. There will have to be adequate staff so that reports can be got quickly from the Department.

What set me musing about that was that some people were puzzled about what the Minister conceives the role and function of the Higher Education Authority to be. The 1971 Act set that out very carefully. During the summer the Minister for Education set up a committee which had representation from the Higher Education Authority to do a job that I would have thought was proper to the Higher Education Authority itself. The Higher Education Authority issued a number of very useful and well researched reports, and I am hoping it has not been downgraded. Again I am only surmising from what is happening; I do not know whether the fact that the Minister set up a different committee to help to draft the new Higher Education Authority legislation and that the Higher Education Authority did not get that job to do means the Minister is losing confidence in the authority. I am wondering whether they were consulted as such. I know they had representatives on this new committee while it was deliberating. I am just wondering if they will be consulted as the authority with the role and function outlined in the Act of 1971 and if they will be consulted before the Bill is circulated.

They have to be, under the Act; therefore they will be.

Before it is drafted?

I will obey the law.

It is good to hear that. Would the Minister then be suspicious that the committee which was set up outside the Higher Education Authority was in some way not in accordance with the law?

The new purported Conference of Irish Universities and its relationship with the Higher Education Authority will also come into question, but perhaps some time in a white or green paper or a pre-legislative document we may be able to debate that further. In regard to savings—each time I refer to it I would like to be an actor to be able to say it properly—I want to put inverted commas around the word. Under subhead B.1 there is a saving of £120,000 in the funding of the National Institute for Higher Education in Limerick. It is current expenditure. Again, it is difficult to see how, without interfering with the services provided, in an inflationary situation one can save £120,000 on a Vote for the National Institute for Higher Education. The Minister may know how that can be done without damaging the services. There is also a saving of £20,000 on the Dublin Institute and I understand that the governing body of the Institute has to meet soon. Again, there seems to be penny-pinching in all these fields. I am sure that the Minister will see to it that the Department of Finance is repulsed heavily the next time they come with their Midas eyes on the money voted for education.

Under the heading, Dublin Dental Hospital, there is a "saving" of £233,000. I visited the dental college as did Deputies O'Malley and Haughey, and there is no doubt that this House, and the country, have let the dedicated and able teaching staff of that college down over the years. The problems are not easy and I do not pretend they are, but the building is totally inadequate. The qualifications and dedication—both are important—of the staff are admirable. In my view if £233,000 was voted to the dental college they could use it. It is a disgrace that such a figure should be entered here as a "saving".

I should now like to deal with grant-in-aid fund for capital building costs and planning expenses of third level institutions not funded by An t-Údarás Um Árd-Oideachais. In passing I should like to refer to the declaration by the Government that 13 extra institutions were to be designated as institutions in accordance with the 1971 Act for funding from the HEA. I find it hard to understand why they have not been so designated. Under that subhead there is a "saving" £97,000. The remarks I have made already about this kind of a "saving" obtain here also. The prime need is for a development in Dublin, the Ballymun development. That is a major capital programme. Any "saving" on the capital programme seems not merely to let down the Department of Education but does not take the opportunity of providing employment while at the same time improving the educational structures here. The imposition of strictures on the Department of Education, the forcing of the Department to rob Peter to pay Paul, is deleterious to education. I know the Minister for Finance will ask us if we have not heard about the world recession and so on but, in accordance with the belief that education is the top social service here, the Department of Education and its expenditure on what are necessities, should be left alone.

I commenced by welcoming the Minister and I added that I was glad he had experience in business and commerce. In my view this will equip him well to repel the rapacious "savers" of the Department of Finance.

I should also like to offer my congratulations to the Minister for Education. It is a grave responsibility because it is his duty to guide the minds of our young people during his term of office. As a rural Deputy I am primarily concerned with the task of helping to relate our educational system to the needs of a rural community. We have made great progress in relating our educational system to the needs of our society even though we started off with the great handicap that our system was imposed upon us by the British. It was not a system that evolved out of our own needs, ideals or aspirations and it was an agency often used to help make us fit in with the aims of British colonial policy. In so far as this imposed system was anti-national we have made great strides in changing and improving it, but in so far as it was geared to help the material needs of our people we have not made progress to the same extent in changing and improving it.

We took a major stride forward when the late Donough O'Malley brought post-primary education within reach of every Irish child, but we cannot afford to rest there. We must try to tailor our educational system to the capacity and the needs of each child. We must tailor it, in particular, to the needs of our rural community. In his anxiety to get his idea of an educational system off the ground the late Donough O'Malley was forced to set up many pre-fab buildings. Those buildings have a limited lifespan and there is a danger that we might expect them to last longer than they will. There is need to make provision for more permanent school buildings. In those cases where teachers and pupils are handicapped by shortcomings in existing buildings there is a need to get moving quickly. The idea of a massive school building campaign was mooted some time ago as a means for stimulating employment throughout the country. Such a campaign needs to be undertaken in areas where the existing school buildings are not up to standard, and there are quite a number of those buildings in County Galway. I should like to see them being phased out as soon as possible and replaced by solid structures.

The school bus is also an essential part of the educational system in rural Ireland, and it is only right to thank the drivers for the care and consideration they have always shown to children under their care. They have a very responsible task. Many a young mother is frightened at the thought of her first-born being whisked away in a strange vehicle to a new school often many miles away, but the drivers have been very considerate and are to be congratulated on their efforts. However, there is need to have greater regard to the wishes of local people in setting out schools bus routes, and care must always be taken not to infringe on the traditional catchment area, because that leads generally to dissension and even strikes which are detrimental to the children's interests. It must be avoided at all costs. Recently, there seems to have been a change for the worse in many school bus routes. I do not want to mention individual cases now, but it has been brought to my notice that many schools now have problems because of limitations imposed on school transport. This is regrettable because it means that children who, up to now, had been getting free transport are dprived of it. I shall not dwell on that as I want to be brief so as to give others an opportunity to speak also.

Topping the list of my order of priorities is the need to tailor our post-primary system of education to the needs of the community. We hear a great deal about community development, about the need to create a greater sense of community and the need to strengthen the framework of the community. The first essential for community is people, and the needs and hopes of these people should determine the type of post-primary education available to their children. Since the foundation of the State for a long time the children fortunate enough to get post-primary education went to schools where the emphasis was on preparing them for the church, the professions or the civil service. This suited the needs of those able to avail of post-primary education at the time. It was unusual for children destined to carry on the family farm or business to get post-primary education. Many parents considered that there was no need for such education for children destined to stay at home, in the shop, workshop or on the farm. This system of education catered for the child destined to leave the community rather than for the child destined to remain in it. Our priorities were wrong and it is only now we are beginning to realise how wrong they were and still are.

I represent a rural constituency which, by Dutch standards, is very thinly populated. If we had in East Galway the population density of Holland our towns would be cities with up to 60,000 in some of them. We have natural resources, particularly in land for agriculture, to build up our community. It should be the main objective to post-primary education to help our people to make the fullest use of these natural resources in order to build up the community. The system should cater for those destined to remain in the community as well as for those destined to leave it. With things as they are, we should be leaning over backwards to cater for those destined to remain in our community. I do not want to belittle efforts at present being made in this direction. Post-primary schools and bodies such as AnCO are doing excellent work but there is much more to be done if we want to cater fully for the needs of a developing community. These needs have been set out again and again. I have been present at parents' meetings and I have attended at the Department of Education on deputations from my own constituency and I have heard the parents spell out exactly what they want in our educational system.

The Chair does not wish to interrupt the Deputy, but in supplementary estimates we are confined to the headings included in the estimates. We are not dealing with the general estimate for education.

I appreciate that, and I shall try to confine my remarks as indicated, but I think they are generally related to the whole system of secondary education.

The Chair appreciates that, but is bound by rules which say that we must confine ourselves to what is in the subheads.

I shall just quote one instance to illustrate the point I was trying to make. In early summer 1975, I was a member of a deputation of parents and teachers from Ballygar in my constituency to the Department asking for facilities to be provided for children at a local secondary school. There was a certain urgency about the request because many children were being forced to leave the catchment area in order to study certain subjects which were not on the school curriculum in the local post-primary school and also because Bord na Móna were about to start a development programme in that area and it was felt that it would be necessary for the children to have metalwork training and secretarial courses provided at the secondary school. They gave their reasons in the Department. So far those facilities have not been provided, but I understand they are being planned or prepared and are being submitted to the Department. I trust the Department will not delay them because it is important that there should be the least possible delay.

One reason given for the delay was that post-primary schools must have a certain quota of pupil enrolment before the full range of subjects can be provided. We were told that it would be uneconomic to provide the full range where the enrolment did not warrant it. If population density were the same in County Galway as in County Dublin there would be grounds for such an approach, but we must face facts, and the density of population in County Galway is far lower than in County Dublin. As a result, children in Galway and in other more thinly populated areas do not have the same range of educational facilities at post-primary level as the Dublin children have. I do not think that is right. Where possible those facilities should be provided in schools in rural Ireland even though the average may not be up to the desired level. We talk about building up our communities yet when an obvious opportunity offers in an area where community co-operation is strong, we are very slow to co-operate with those people.

There seems to be a strange reluctance to provide facilities for vocational subjects. This again is to be deplored. The trend still continues to favour academic subjects. We are not doing enough to correct this imbalance. We need to generate more interest in vocational and technical subjects and to set a lead in getting away from the idea that brain power is necessary only for liberal studies, and that all a farmer needs is a strong back. The day has come when we should place more emphasis on vocational education.

The Deputy will appreciate that we do not have that.

Unfortunately we have not, but it is very important.

The Deputy will be given an opportunity to discuss this at a later stage.

Galway Vocational Educational Committee have submitted plans for the erection of a new vocational school at Tuam. They are trying to purchase from the racecourse committee a very suitable site which is adjacent to the other secondary schools in the town. I asked the Minister to pursue this matter and to try to give sanction for the purchase of this site as soon as possible because it is not every day a suitable site comes on the market and it would be a pity to miss this opportunity, particularly in a thriving town like Tuam where there is such a need for vocational education.

I dtús báire ba mhaith liom cuidiú leis an Teachta Hussey agus an Teachta Wilson mar gheall ar an bhfáilte a chuireadar roimh an Aire nua. Tá súil agam, agus dóchas agam chomh maith, gur fearrde an Roinn é bheith leo; gur fearrde cúrsaí oideachais é bheith leo agus gur fearrde an tír go h-iomlán é bheith ina Aire Oideachais.

Bhí mé ag éisteacht leis an Teachta Wilson agus mé i mo sheomra. Rinne sé tagairt don ghearradh a rinneadh maidir le scoileanna lán-Ghaelacha agus scoileanna dhátheangacha. Tá súil agam go dtuigeann an tAire cé chomh tábhachtach agus atá sé go bhfaighe na scoileanna pé cúnamh is féidir. Chomh fada agus a bhaineann sé liomsa ba cheart go bhféadfaí rud ar bith a dhéanamh chun na scoileanna sin a choinneáil ar siúl gan ag an am gcéanna ualach ró-mhór a chur ar na daoine atá gníomhach ins na scoileanna agus atá ag iarraidh an seirbhís atá agus a bhéas riachtanach don tír seo a chur ar fáil. Tuigim nach gceadaítear dom níos mó b'fhéidir a rá ar an bpointe sin agus fágfaidh mé mar sin é go fóillín.

The only other matter to which I would like to refer was referred to by the Minister when he spoke about the opening of an additional subhead C.9 in respect of grants towards the cost of painting schools. That, as you know, in the main refers to primary schools. Later he referred to recoupment in respect of grants to schools in this regard. One of the most retrograde steps in this country was the introduction of a scheme where it was necessary for local parents, or people operating on their behalf, to provide what I continue to call a fee for primary education. The £1.50 fee per student is the most unsocialistic step that any Government, or part of a Government that claimed the seventies would be socialist, ever introduced. Never before was there any condition that the maintenance, heating or general hygiene in schools would be related to the ability or the preparedness of students attending primary schools to pay £1.50 per annum. There is no justification whatsoever for that.

We occasionally hear sentimental references to the time when our forebears brought the sod of turf to school. We remember our days in national schools when we helped towards cleaning the school. If we look at the constitutional position we see there is an obligation on the State to provide that each child attending a primary school will attend one which is structurally sound, well heated and providing the normal comforts one would expect. The idea of a local committee—usually consisting of the manager, the principal and the parents' representatives—at their wits' ends to raise funds so that these services can be provided, is most retrogressive. I cannot understand it.

Most of us are family men. I have a daughter attending primary school. A fee of £1.50 must be paid for her. Nobody comes to me and says "You must pay £1.50 for Orla". On the other hand, I know it must be collected because of the new regime. I respond to requests for money, whether they are church collections or outside, raffle tickets or anything else, and pay. I have two sons in third level education. I do not get any requests for a contribution to keep them warm in UCD or in Kevin Street College of Technology nor do I get any requests for funds to paint those two establishments. Are we introducing a system whereby the higher the IQ and the services provided the less demand there will be for heating and painting the premises?

I am asking the new Minister for Education to have a look at this scheme. I do not know the total amount realised but if we have 500,000 primary pupils the amount would be something less than £1 million. We talk about free education, which is a fallacy. Education is not free in any of its stages. The Constitution requires that the State shall provide education and there should be no question of the State not maintaining and heating buildings.

I agree the State cannot provide for all the needs and requests that are made, but the amount of money being voted now for heating and painting schools has no relationship to the educational needs of the children. I could understand the possibility that there would be collections from parents for the provision of better audio-visual aids and for additional teachers, if parents so decide, in subjects like music and drama, as ancillary services to the normal curriculum, but it is entirely wrong to suggest that local management committees should go around with cans collecting pennies so that the schools can be painted, cleaned and maintained in a hygienic condition. That sort of scheme should be suspended immediately and I ask the Minister to do so.

In education generally we should be highlighting our priorities and the two I have referred to, the Irish language and primary education, are to me the two highest considerations. I do not want to develop the point in respect of primary education but at the moment passage through primary schools and a year or two in some post-primary institution is as far as the majority of our children achieve in the field of education. Therefore, I do not think it is too much to ask that during their years in primary schools children should enjoy all the facilities and the comforts given to those in third level institutions. Parents should not be asked to pay more than their fair share of general taxation for this constitutional right.

I agree with Deputy Tunney that these collections for painting and cleaning schools are terribly wrong. Although I congratulate the new Minister and wish him well, I would remind him that his predecessor promised to reconsider the question of collections and the system of grants, particularly the fee-per-pupil element. Because of depopulation in rural Ireland where there were fourteacher schools there are now three-teacher schools and it is unfair that less money should be given towards their upkeep—the buildings still have to be maintained even though they have a smaller number of pupils and therefore the grants should be kept up. Apart from anything else, it is socially humiliating to be going around collecting this money from local sources.

There was reference to higher education. To my mind the system at the moment is orientated towards the passing of examinations with consequent sacrifice of general knowledge. Secondary students are given a certain number of subjects but they have not got the necessary general knowledge because of the requirement to pass examinations.

I agree with Deputy Hussey that the subjects taught in rural schools should be aimed at keeping the students at home rather than towards further depopulation. There is also a need to direct the educational system towards preparing people for jobs in industry instead of, as in the old tradition, educating them for clerical jobs which do not exist. The entire system of education will have to be considered from the point of view of equipping our young people for employment.

The question of degrees from technical colleges has been discussed frequently recently, particularly the matter which arose in Galway. There is the fear in this country that if one receives technological training it is not as good as an academic one acquired in a university.

I put those few points to the new Minister for Education for consideration when he is reviewing the whole of education, with emphasis on the type of education being afforded young people.

Perhaps I may be allowed to make one point relating to my constituency and which is causing grave concern at present. I wish the Minister well in his new post. Perhaps he would apply himself to the solution of the problem—related to the Beech Hill Complex in Monaghan. Approval has been given for the sector for the vocational committee but approval has not yet been given for the balance. It is very important that both sectors be advocated simultaneously. If the Department took an in-depth look at it they would decide it was bad economy to proceed with the portion already approved and then the other at a later stage. They are committed to providing facilities in that other sector of the school. Taking into account the shortage of space, the number of structures, teachers and pupils involved perhaps he would give it priority.

Perhaps I might start rather appropriately from where Deputy Wilson left off because, in my previous responsibilities, he was the spokesman for tourism. I know the problem about which he was speaking —not in detail—and it is being considered at the very highest level. I hope there will be some result from those considerations very shortly.

I hope Deputies will bear with me. I should like to thank all Deputies for their welcome in my new Department. Deputy Wilson said a number of times that I was a man with much business background and he hoped I would bring those qualities to bear in the Department of Education and resist the marauding hands of the Department of Finance. As long as I am Minister I will be responsible for any cuts in the size of my Estimate.

I hope there will not be any.

It is the duty of a Minister to come in here seeking the money he thinks is correct, taking all the economic circumstances, not merely of his Department but of the country as a whole, into account and to use that money in the following year for the benefit—in this case— of the education of our children. It is all right for Deputy Wilson to attack civil servants of my Department because at least they are present and they can blush if they are wrong.

Impossible.

But to attack civil servants of the Department of Finance is rather unfair.

If I might say so it was the Minister for Finance I was having a go at, not his officials.

As Minister for Education I will be responsible for expenditure within my Department. If Deputy Wilson wants to attack me, well and good. I hope I will be able for him in this regard and will snarl back, if necessary.

We will have a symphony of snarls.

In A flat minor. I hope the House will bear with me if I do not answer in as much detail as would some Minister who had been immersed in the Department for a number of years. I have been in the Department less than a week. Some Deputies present are teachers themselves and will know from their life's work the detail and complexity of all educational matters. All of the Deputies who spoke advocated the spending of more money. There is no doubt but that such would satisfy a lot of people interested in education and, I think it is fair to say also, a lot of the ills. There was a predecessor of all of us in this House who used to say that he preferred golden teachers and wooden schools to wooden teachers and golden schools. But, in this day and age, we cannot ignore conditions in which teachers and pupils have to work. There is a necessity for new schools, for refurbishing of old ones, for capital investments of all kinds, all competing for the same limited amount of money. Therefore, inevitably there will be delays. The setting of priorities in a formalised way will be difficult in this regard. I think the Department of Lands do this in regard to land drainage so that applicants know their position on a list and when the drainage in their areas will come up, but it would be very difficult to do that in regard to education. Every demand must be looked at individually and efforts made to meet the very legitimate aspirations of local communities, of teachers and pupils. The money I am requesting here today perhaps highlights that difficulty.

Deputy Wilson was critical of the Department for having savings made. Without reflecting on any one of the savings made—I say this broadly—it is the duty of every Minister and accounting officer in every Department to run that Department as cheaply as possible because ultimately the money can be got only from the taxpayers and that is all of us. Therefore, we have a duty to ensure that the money this House votes to a particular Minister is spent as wisely as possible in the public interest. Savings made under individual subheads of this Vote, to some extent at least, will pay increases in salaries under a wage agreement.

I think there would be unanimous agreement in this House that we must pay our teachers well. We must train them well and pay them well if we are to reap the best value in the overall educational sense from our investment in education. However long I am here the investment that will be made through me, as Minister, in education will never be as high as I think it should be. Perhaps no predecessor of mine ever thought so either, nor indeed will any of my successors. It never was and never will be as high as we would like. There will always be extremely good schemes that should be gone ahead with that will have to be postponed for a period of time because funds are not available. We shall always face that situation. We must do the best we can for all levels of education competing for the funds available. I do not want to say anything now that will send forth the word that I have a certain philosophy or ideal about education. I am not even committing myself to any course of action. For that reason I shall not comment on the role of the HEA, as Deputy Wilson asked, because I feel I should talk to the people involved, find out the various points of view held and then come to a considered decision rather than one, perhaps not flippant but with not as much thought as should be given to this subject, here today.

Deputy Wilson said it is—I think he said—three years since there was a full debate in this House on education. I would hope we would have one during the coming financial year, when I would have had more time to immerse myself in the problems of my new Department and attempt to reach solutions. We could have that debate on a token Estimate or by way of whatever would be the appropriate machinery but if I had a preference in regard to education I would accept what Deputy Tunney has said, that is, to form legs on which education must be structured. I refer to primary education and to the Irish language. Táim cosúil le roint mhaith daoine ar fud na tíre. Tá an teanga agam ach níl sí chomh láidir is chomh flúirseach agus ba mhaith liom í a bheith. Act tá suim agam sa teanga, ach mar adúirt chara liom uair amháin: "Theip ar an dteanga because it is surrounded by a bog of goodwill"—daoine cosúil liom féin, go bhfuil an teanga acu. Múineadh an teanga dom sa bhunscoil agus sa mheánscoil. Do labhramar roint di lasmuigh den scoil. Nuair do bhíomar san FCA, níos mó bliana ó shin anois ná mar is maith liom smaoineamh air, níor labhramar ach Gaeilge. Ach ní bhíonn an taithí agam agus sin í chúis gur chailleamar an líofacht.

That is a matter to which I would wish to address myself. We must ask whether there is anything we can do in this regard. Most people acknowledge that we have failed in regard to Irish. Conscious of my own sins in this regard, I am convinced nevertheless that if the language is lost my generation must accept the blame because we were educated when Irish was available, at a time when the language was encouraged in schools. Perhaps the failure rests with the many people like myself who, while expressing goodwill for, and defending the people's right to use, the language, do not use it ourselves. This problem is one that has occupied the minds of Ministers, teachers and Departments since the foundation of the State but no solution has been found. During the short time I am in the Department—and I use the word "short" in the sense of the period of the history of the language—I doubt if a solution to the problem will be found but I can assure the House that I will not do anything to damage in any way the position of the language in our lives.

Regarding Deputy Wilson's question in relation to the NCAD, the position in relation to the past was that a capital provision of £50,000 was made in 1975. This was intended for preliminary works on a new building on another site as well as for some work on the existing site. However, the problem arose in regard to payment for work on the existing site, works which had not been authorised fully. Some of the provision remained unspent at the end of 1975. The problem has been overcome and payment to meet expenses of the order of £20,000 in respect of building works on the existing site have been authorised in 1976 out of the grant-in-aid.

Deputy Wilson raised, too, the saving of £29,990 under subhead C9. I understand that this refers to the convention on technique procedure adopted for the purpose of the presentation of the token Supplementary Estimate of £10 which we are now debating. In respect of subhead C5, the exact saving, as the Deputy said, was between £400,000 and £500,000. This relates to the £6 capitation grant. An allowance was made this time last year when the Estimates for 1976 were being compiled in the hope of increasing the figure. However, it was not found possible to increase it in the circumstances prevailing half way through this year. The problem is the one raised also by Deputy Callanan—that of one-and two-teacher schools. There has been an adjustment in calculation to the effect that the amount of grant payable in the case of any individual school will be subject to a minimum of £250 per year or to a minimum of £125 for schools maintained by the State and in respect of which capitation grants are lowered. A circular to this effect will be issued to the schools at an early date. The cost of this amendment to the scheme is estimated at about £60,000 per year. Therefore, regardless of size, any school will receive £250 per year although they might not have the minimum 40 pupils.

To go back for a moment to the question of the Irish language; I have noted in the past couple of years that there is more interest being expressed in the language by young people, that there is more appreciation of it, not as a subject imposed on them at school, but as a means of communication. That is a desirable trend.

As the Deputy knows, there was an increase last year in the capitation grants for schools. This grant was increased from £20 to £30 but all the time the A and B schools had 25 per cent more than the base capitation rate so that when the capitation rate was £20 they had £25 and when the rate increased by £10, the A and B schools got an increase of £12.50 by reason of their having the £5 advantage.

Regarding an Irish publication mentioned by Deputy Wilson, I can only tell him at this stage that there are legalities involved. The point he made about the school at Cootehill illustrates the size of the problem. Every Deputy could list schools in his constituency, all levels of schools on which capital money could be spent to advantage. We will allocate our limited funds as fairly and as wisely as possible, but we must recognise that there is not a bottomless well of money for education or for any other Department. Recognising the importance of the Department of Education, the Government will allocate as much money as possible to education.

Debate adjourned.
Barr
Roinn