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Cabinet Committees

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 16 September 2020

Wednesday, 16 September 2020

Ceisteanna (2, 3, 4)

Mary Lou McDonald

Ceist:

2. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on education will next meet. [22355/20]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Alan Kelly

Ceist:

3. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach if the Cabinet committee on education has met to date in September 2020. [22380/20]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Richard Boyd Barrett

Ceist:

4. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on education will next meet. [23667/20]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (21 píosaí cainte)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 to 4, inclusive, together.

The Cabinet committee on education was established by Government decision on 6 July last and the first meeting will take place in the coming weeks. It will oversee implementation of programme for Government commitments in the area of education. In addition to the meetings of full Cabinet and Cabinet committees, I meet with Ministers on an individual basis to focus on particular issues.

Yesterday, I launched our medium-term plan, Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021: Plan for Living with Covid-19, which frames Ireland's approach to managing and living with Covid-19 for the coming six to nine months. The Government has identified the reopening of schools and early education and childcare services as a priority. The plan acknowledges the impact of school closures on children and young people’s social and emotional development, as well as their academic progress. Childhood education and care is also essential for parents to balance work with family responsibilities. Keeping schools and early education and childcare services open in any escalation of restrictive measures will continue to be a top priority for Government.

Sector-specific guidance has also been prepared and published for the early years sector, schools and further and higher education institutions, and this will be updated to reflect the new framework.

In the context of the schools reopening, I would have had quite a number of meetings with the Minister and the senior officials of the Department in terms of the logistical planning for the reopening and bringing 1 million people back into our schools. The resources required to do that, which were close to €370 million or €400 million, and it will go over that in time, were critical in terms of enabling our schools to come back.

I have also had a series of meetings with the Minister and her officials in regard to the calculated grades, which has been a very significant logistical exercise in itself in a unique year, with Covid-19 and no leaving certificate, as we would have known it, making it very difficult and challenging for the young people involved. If we contrast what has happened in other jurisdictions, to be fair to the Minister, Deputy Norma Foley, and to the Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, in terms of the additional places that have been created at third level, those meetings, and that testing through of the various scenarios that were presented by the Department of Education and Skills officials around calculated grades, was work well done. Nonetheless, there are clearly difficulties emanating from it, and for many individual students it is very difficult in terms of the standardisation process and how it may have impacted on their own individual results. That said, in a unique and very challenging situation because of Covid-19, it was possible to deliver a calculated grades process and programme, and also to create additional places - more than 4,000 additional places at third level this year - to try to help with the pressures on students and help them to get the courses they obviously desired.

For the third time, I am asking the Taoiseach to set out what Electric Ireland told him when he contacted them. I raised this issue around energy bills, which is of massive concern.

I dealt with that earlier.

The Taoiseach told me earlier that he had been in touch with Electric Ireland. This is the third occasion I am asking him to clarify what it said to him, what commitments it made and so on.

I also note that the Ombudsman for Children has published its annual report today. It is raising specific concerns about mental health policy and provision for children and young people. I want to reflect that concern to the Taoiseach. It is the issue of remote education for children who live with a medically vulnerable person that I want to raise with him. I have had a very significant number of contacts from families and from parents who are afraid to send their child to school because one of their children living at home has a significant underlying or life-threatening medical condition. They are terrified to send their children to school because they are afraid of that child bringing the virus into the home. In turn, they cannot keep their children at home as schools have received no direction from the Department on how to manage this specific scenario. Currently, the only option available to them is to register with Tusla for home-schooling, and that is not what they are asking for.

My colleague, Teachta Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, has raised this with the Minister countless times. We are asking that a circular is issued to schools, enabling them to provide remote teaching to pupils who live with the person who has a certified serious medical condition. I am asking the Taoiseach to act on this quickly because it is causing such considerable distress.

Deputy McDonald has raised a real issue, which has also come to my attention, and I am glad she has put it on the record, although I do not want to repeat it.

There are three issues the Taoiseach might look at. As regards testing in schools, we need a plan. In fact, we need a whole session on where we are going with testing. I accept what the Taoiseach said earlier, by the way, and I am coming at this from a different angle. Given the new technologies that are out there in regard to testing, I have had discussions with the Minister, the HSE and others as to how we were going to bring about rapid testing in schools, and how we are going to use and leverage these technologies. Other jurisdictions and other countries have done this, so where are we at in this regard? I accept it has to go through a regulation process. That is the first question.

Second, what are we doing to prepare schools for the eventuality that the leaving certificate next year will go through something similar to this year, which is a strong possibility?

Third, in the roadmap just launched, one of the things the Taoiseach did not say at the press conference but which was subsequently outlined for Dublin is that higher and third level institutions should consider enhanced protective measures. What does that mean? Third level institutions also have an interest in housing, so it is in their financial interest to bring people up. Could we be at a point in the near future where the Government will be instructing third level institutions to do all their teaching online for a period of time? Those are three reasonable questions.

To follow on from Deputy McDonald's question, there is not only the issue of pupils who may have underlying conditions but there are also parents who are worried and who have serious underlying conditions. It is not clear to me, and I have had quite a few calls about this, what those parents should do. They do not know what to do or whether there is a danger in them sending their children to school. We need support and we need advice for people about what they should do in that situation.

The Department and the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, have agreed a plan to monitor school compliance with Covid-19 restrictions but they do not intend to publish the outcome of those inspections or, it seems, share that information with, for example, the teachers themselves, but only with principals and the boards. This does not seem to me to be acceptable.

As well as principals, and this extends to all workplaces but certainly in schools, surely there should be health and safety representatives appointed in every school among the school staff who will also receive the information if there are problems and who can represent the staff in terms of any concerns they have about failure to apply public health guidelines, restrictions, distancing and so forth properly in schools.

First, I have not personally spoken to Electric Ireland. I told the Deputy that I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. We have been in touch with Electric Ireland, and when we get a response, I will revert to the Deputy. I also told the Deputy that there was a reduction in utility prices earlier this year and that the presentation she made on the previous occasion in the Dáil was not entirely accurate. Regarding the public service obligation, PSO, I outlined our policy on renewable energy.

As regards arrangements for children with high risk medical conditions who cannot attend school, the education roadmap provides a model of support and guidance to schools for pupils who cannot attend due to Covid-19 public health requirements and their underlying conditions. A key element of that is a two-way link between the school and the home, if at all feasible. Home tuition is an option in a situation where the other siblings might not be able to go to school either, due to a fear of bringing infection into the home. Home tuition is one intervention.

They do not want it though.

We are not going to produce optimal solutions left, right and centre.

I have acknowledged that.

It is an option and some people avail of it. The third option is some other model to be developed which has to be fleshed out.

That is the point.

It has to be fleshed out. It is not as simple as just calling for it. It has to be developed-----

The Department needs to do it.

-----and worked through.

In terms of mental health supports, additional psychologists have been recruited under the roadmap to the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. In addition, there is full provision for school guidance counsellors. That is something to which I committed during the confidence and supply arrangement and it is now 100% restored because of my commitment to doing it both in opposition and in government. It provides very important supports to students at second level when returning to school. To be fair to the education roadmap, it had a particular focus on the psychological well-being of pupils as they returned to school, given the prolonged lockdown and closure of schools and the impact on their lives. Children and young people are developing, and have developed, significant resilience in the face of the pandemic. It has been particularly challenging for them, but I am of the view that they have responded with a degree of resilience.

Deputy Boyd Barrett's point related to-----

The inspections and monitoring.

Yes. Everything that has been done so far in the reopening of schools has been done in partnership. It is important that the inspections take place and that they are done as a way of ensuring improvement and constructive compliance. I surmise, and I will seek further information on this from the Department, that it wants to bring schools with it and that it does not wish to be naming and shaming, which is how some types of inspections can evolve. Instead, where the inspectors see shortcomings, they would work with the school management, the board and the principals to point to the shortcomings and the need to get them sorted. The board has parent, community and teacher representatives. I am only surmising that this might be one of the rationales. The partners in education will have a say in this as well. However, I will revert to the Deputy in that regard because I read that report this morning as well.

As regards testing in schools, I gave Members figures this morning. The positivity rate is less than 1% for those up to 14 years of age. It is quite comprehensive. A number of schools are getting advice. There has been a great deal of pressure on the testing system since the schools reopened. That was understandable and expected. Testing has increased overall. Today, we passed 1 million tests administered in Ireland. Last week saw the largest number of tests ever recorded in a week. There has been a significant degree of input from the HSE in that regard and it has been working closely with the schools in respect of the situation that pertains to schools, students and children who require testing.

On the leaving certificate, in my meetings with the Department and the Minister for Education and Skills, they have been absolutely determined that there will be a physical leaving certificate examination next year, come what may. We do not want to return to the calculated grades system. They are planning and preparing for how to manage this year's leaving certificate students who were in fifth year last year and lost some months as a result of the lockdown. Some of the ideas being developed include a broader choice in the range of questions that will be offered to students who may be fearful that they did not get the time to cover the entire curriculum. There would be greater choice for students in subjects such as English, history and geography, in fact, in most subjects. I will leave that to the curriculum experts and the people who set the examinations. It is important we do everything we can to have physical examinations next year.

The planning for that starts now. The chief inspector was adamant that this is the plan and the commitment.

In terms of higher education and the enhanced protection measures that NPHET has asked the universities and institutes of technology to take, each college is adapting various measures suitable to the campus and location. A number of them are online for many courses. One is looking at blended learning and students being physically on campus for some hours of the week, but much of it is online. Different colleges have different policies.

That might have to change.

That is why NPHET has advised. The Minister with responsibility for higher and further education is engaging with the various institutes and universities with a view to enhancing their measures further.

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