Richard Bruton
Ceist:15 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education the reason the Murphy Committee on Primary Education, appointed by her, has only two parent representatives.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Parent Representation on Murphy Committee.
Jim Mitchell
Ceist:29 Mr. J. Mitchell asked the Minister for Education the reason the Murphy Committee on Primary Education, appointed by her, has only two parent representatives.
Michael D'Arcy
Ceist:51 Mr. D'Arcy asked the Minister for Education the reason the Murphy Committee on Primary Education, appointed by her, has only two parent representatives.
Michael Creed
Ceist:77 Mr. Creed asked the Minister for Education the reason the Murphy Committee on Primary Education, appointed by her, has only two parent representatives.
Paul Bradford
Ceist:93 Mr. Bradford asked the Minister for Education the reason the Murphy Committee on Primary Education, appointed by her, have only two parent representatives.
John Browne
Ceist:106 Mr. Browne (Carlow-Kilkenny) asked the Minister for Education the reason the Murphy Committee on Primary Education, appointed by her, has only two parent representatives.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 15, 29, 51, 77, 93 and 106 together. The Primary Education Review Body — that is the Murphy review — represents a wide range of interests and it was necessary, when it was being constituted, to limit the number of members to reasonable proportions. It was in this context that the National Parents' Council were allocated two places on the review body.
Would the Minister not agree that the allocation of two places to parents as against eight places for teachers and five places for management does not reflect the importance of the contribution of parents in education and does not give sufficient weight to the views of parents in this context? Would the Minister further agree that additional parental representation would bring new disciplines into the operation of the Murphy Committee which would be beneficial on the ground?
The Murphy review has been set up for two years and is now due to report so it is rather odd that it is two years since its establishment that this raft of questions appear on the Order Paper. On perhaps half a dozen occasions I have met the parents in formal consultative meetings and they have expressed difficulties about compiling the research and about being ready with reports and various other matters but they have never expressed the view that their numbers were inadequate on the review committee. As Deputies know, the calibre of the parents on the committee is excellent. In furthering their work and research so that they could participate fully on the review committees — the curriculum review committee and Dr. Tom Murphy's committee on primary review — coming to the end of the year in my Supplementary Estimate I made an ex gratia payment of £25,000 to the national parent council, a payment which the Deputy refused when he was Minister for Finance.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
(Interruptions.)
Would the Minister accept that the parents have complained, at least to me, about their level of representation on these two bodies? Would the Minister further agree that in view of the fact that parental representation is so small, relative to that of other interests, the report should be drafted so as to compensate for the under-representation by giving extra weight to the parental views expressed in the committee?
The drafting of any committee report is up to the chairman of the committee. The Government and I have the utmost faith in Dr. Tom Murphy and I will certainly not tell him where he is to put his considerable weight in relation to any one aspect of the committee's report.
We will move on now to Question No. 16.