DÁIL ÉIREANN

Sitting Time - 10:40
Sitting Date - 12/01/2012

LEADERS QUESTIONS

Deputy Finian McGrath: I wish to raise the important issue of education.  I am pleased the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, is present in the Chamber.  In particular, I wish to refer to the proposed cuts to DEIS schools, the most disadvantaged schools in the State.  I do not know whether the Minister is aware that parents, teachers and entire communities are upset about the proposed cuts and about the damage to education.

I wish to focus my questions on DEIS schools.  Does the Minister accept as a core principle that one of the most important ways out of poverty in any country is education?  Why then is he taking 428 DEIS teaching posts from 270 primary schools and 163 post-primary schools?  Does the Minister understand the damage that will do to those pupils and families?  Does he understand the work done in DEIS schools with children at risk and dysfunctional pupils with major problems in their lives?  Four year olds come to school every day with huge problems.  Does the Minister really understand educational disadvantage?  Why is he trying to dismantle a service that has proven to work in the past ten years for the most needy pupils in the State?

On the broader issue of education and the economy, many consider that the Minister is penalising those poor pupils for the actions of bankers, developers and politicians.  They feel they are taking the rap for the actions of others.  There is a gross injustice in that.

The Minister should be careful with his reply to my final question.  Does he accept that the Government could be in breach of Article 28.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Education Act 1998 by removing those posts from the education service?  I accept that a review is being carried out.  Many of the Minister's colleagues on the backbenches have major concerns on the matter.  Deputy John Lyons made an excellent speech last night.

As people have major concerns about this, I urge the Minister to rescind the decision to cut these services to disadvantaged pupils.

Deputy Ruairí Quinn: If I may remind the Deputy, like himself, I, too, represent a constituency with an inner-city core with a high level of disadvantage. Over my time in Dublin South-East I have seen intergenerational poverty when dealing with the grandchildren of people I first dealt with many decades ago.  I agree education is the great liberator.  I would not be in this Chamber if it were not for the chance that I had the good fortune and opportunity to be educated to the level I have been, and I want that same chance to be applied to every other child of this republic.

There are no DEIS-designated teachers being taken out of any DEIS-band school.  I refer to teachers who are identified as being in a school previous to the introduction of DEIS.  We are now looking at the impact of operation of those teachers in combination with the other teachers in those schools.  We are looking at the effectiveness of the total programme now that we have a Department of Children and Youth Affairs.  As a teacher, Deputy McGrath will readily appreciate that education begins in the home and this can mean literacy or even feeding children with a decent breakfast so that they can go to school to learn on a full stomach and not on an empty one, as is the case, sadly, with many children in disadvantaged schools.  We will examine the impact of the proposals suggested to see how they can be operated, ameliorated or changed in order that we do not have any consequence that is not intended.

I remind the Deputy and other Members that 60% of disadvantaged children go to normal, non-DEIS schools.  There is no monopoly of misery nor of disadvantage in the DEIS schools per se.  I acknowledge there is a significant level of disadvantage in those schools but 60% of disadvantaged children are not in those schools and we have to address the entirety of the education population.  Even if the totality of the proposed changes were to be implemented, the impact would amount to 0.3% on the entire teaching cohort in the system.  Both the Government and I want to liberate children from poverty by means of education in order that they can walk tall themselves.  This is the intention and that is what we are trying to do by means of the review and report to be undertaken in the next four weeks.

Deputy Finian McGrath: I thank the Minister for his response.  I urge him to ensure the review digs deep in the next four weeks and ask him to examine the return of these teachers to these particular schools.  I agree there is no monopoly of disadvantage.  However, I worked for many years in a disadvantaged school and know there are different levels of disadvantage.  For instance, there is crisis disadvantage in many seriously disadvantaged schools and this is different from a school where there are low-income families or those just above the poverty line.

I urge the Minister to use the review to examine the most needy schools and the most needy pupils.  He says the consequences are not intended but I warn him if he removes teachers from these poor schools, there will be serious consequences and it will cost him more in the future and it will also cost the State more in the future.  It might be a figure of 0.3% but as far as I am concerned and as far as many people in this House and members of the Technical Group are concerned, damaging schools - poor schools - and discriminating against children living in poverty should never be an option for trying to solve the economic crisis in the country.

Deputy Ruairí Quinn: Deputy Finian McGrath is a teacher and I will respond to him by saying that the logic of applying additional resources to any endeavour, particularly in the area of education, is that in order to justify the application of those additional resources, one must measure the consequences of those inputs to see the benefit.  The three reports being published today, one by the Educational Research Centre in St. Patrick's College and two by the inspectorate of the Department of Education and Skills, show there are measurable outcomes in the DEIS schools proper and these are positive outcomes in the main.  In the areas where schools are not able to implement an agreed programme or plan - As I am not a professional educationist, I do not wish to sound like one - where the burden on such schools is such that it is not possible, for whatever reason - these reasons are multi-factorial - to follow a plan of improvement over a period of time, then the results are not that great.

I refer to one of the difficulties with some of the earlier schemes such as Breaking the Cycle and Giving Children an Even Break.  There was not the same rigorous level of measurement of outcomes as with DEIS and this will need to be examined.  There is no point in putting in additional resources if 60% of disadvantaged children are in mainstream regular schools.  In my view, as Minister for Education and Skills, there is no point putting in additional resources if there is no mechanism for measuring the outcome of those additional resources.

I refer to the rhetoric used by Deputy McGrath although I do not suspect he intended it.  However, heightened rhetoric such as, "I warn you there will be serious consequences", which was used on 12 January about events that will not take effect until next September, this is not the tone of debate we wish to hear when discussing the future of five, six and seven year olds or their parents-----

Deputy Finian McGrath: It is not rhetoric; it is a genuine concern.

Deputy Ruairí Quinn: The Deputy should listen to what he said: "I warn you there will be serious consequences."

Deputy Finian McGrath: What I mean is it is dangerous for the children of the State.

Deputy Ruairí Quinn: I have examined this matter very closely, having drilled down deep, so to speak, and into all sectors of the education system-----

Deputy Finian McGrath: I object; it is not rhetoric.

Deputy Ruairí Quinn: Perhaps it was the tone of the remarks.  We want a debate that is passionate but also compassionate as regards what we are trying to achieve collectively in this House.