I am very pleased that the Minister has come into the House to respond to the motion. That in itself is an encouragement to me in so far as I believe that she is aware of the problem and I am most grateful to her.
I am one of the people who was very proud of our EC Presidency from January to June last year. I look at the aspirations and hopes that we have in the account that we published of the Presidency of the European Community. The Educational Council met during the Presidency on 31 May and the following was agreed:
A Resolution regarding the integration of children and young people with disabilities into ordinary systems of education; conclusions on the preparation of a new Convention concerning the European Schools; Conclusions on the enhanced treatment of Equality of Education Opportunity for girls and boys in the internal in-service training of teachers; Conclusions on regular meetings of senior officials in the education sector aimed at improving mutual understanding of the various educational systems in the Community as well as discussion of policy issues and problems which are of common concern to member states with a view to improving the quality of educational systems.
That in itself is quite an important proclamation to make. In my Border county we have a particular problem which the Minister is aware of. My motion is to ask her to expedite the harmonisation of all the difficulties and all the problems that prevail. I will quote from the Minister's letter dated 30 November last:
One of the main problems here is that a candidate must have obtained a prescribed success in a Leaving Certificate examination of the Department. Successes in equivalent examinations do not meet the requirement.
That is merely the bottom line in that no matter how high an achiever you are in an A or O level you cannot get a scholarship. We have many highly qualified students who are being educated in the North of Ireland and if their parents reside in the South they cannot get a scholarship. That is a major problem now.
On the other side, the Northern authorities apply a residential clause in determining the award of grants. Students resident in County Donegal, or in any other county in the South, cannot avail of maintenance grants from the appropriate authorities in the North of Ireland. We have this anomaly. I find it difficult to understand how we will achieve a common policy for education if we cannot solve what appears to many of us to be a very small problem on the ground.
One of the aspirations we have expressed is that we will have a mutual recognition of diploma courses in Europe. This has been applauded and accepted by everybody. It is one of the achievements that we are very hopeful we can implement in the very near future. If we have any hope of making progress and have common recognition of diploma courses, it is not too much to expect that we will have harmonisation between the North and South on the island. That is merely the bottom line in my motion.
I thank the Minister for her response to my personal letters. I also wrote to Commissioner Bruce Millan. The Minister has those, so I will not delay in reading them. My vocational committee in Donegal met the Minister as far back as 16 December 1987 and put the case to her. I also made a further submission on 20 October 1989. I believe that anything that I can say here in furtherance of what has already been said and submitted to the Minister would be duplication.
I am pleased that I have had an opportunity to say this in the House. I accept that the Minister is aware of the prevailing difficulties. I hope that she will, in the very near future, implement the necessary legislation to remove what is a very difficult situation for many parents who are living in the South whose children are students at a second level school in the North of Ireland and who if they get a scholarship, are deprived of support.
It works both ways. Already in the Border counties we have an indication that there is a readiness in the Department of Education in the North to resolve the difficulties. This is so necessary because in a Border area we have to complement our services, whether it is education, health or whatever other services are there. We are now centralising the services and improving them. It is not too much to expect that we have recognition and we resolve this problem which is very important to a number of people. This comes about because families have to change if they are in an area where it is dangerous or for some other reason. If they decide to live on the southern side of the Border and their children stay at schools in the North this presents a serious problem. It works both ways.
I ask the Minister to take this on board and to expedite, if she possibly can, a solution to this perhaps minor problem which affects hundreds of children from Dundalk down to Moville right along the Border counties. I appeal to her strongly to implement the necessary legislation to resolve this problem. I believe I am pushing an open door. The Minister is aware of the problem. She will have difficulties in introducing the legislation and implementing the necessary steps but I hope the motion here will encourage her. I thank the Minister for being kind enough to come to the Seanad to respond to my motion.
