Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-13
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

When I was Lord Mayor of Cork, one of the great privileges I had was to give a half day and give the homework off. Unfortunately, the Department of education came down on that practice after I left my job as Lord Mayor of Cork. As the Minister for education, I repeated the act.
To be more serious, education and learning have evolved a lot. We know that children learn more through play in many instances than just through formal academic rigor. We do not want to dictate to schools across the length and breadth of the country but we think schools, particularly at primary level, should factor that into curriculum development. The teacher in me says that doing the odd bit of homework reinforces the message and makes sure that students have picked up and absorbed what was taught in the class.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-13