In September, the Women of Honour bravely came forward to tell their experiences of bullying, harassment, discrimination, misogyny, sexual assault and rape. They were forced to go public with their very difficult and distressing stories because they had been so badly let down by the State and the Defence Forces in getting accountability for what they had experienced and because they were determined to get to the truth. In that week, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, in this Chamber gave assurances that he would treat t…

The Minister of State is probably familiar with the TV programme "Breaking Bad". The Minister of State may recall that around the time it was first broadcast, a meme was doing the rounds known as "Breaking Bad UK edition". It showed the character Walter, having been diagnosed with incurable lung cancer, asking "This will bankrupt me, how will I pay my bills?" The doctor replied, "The government will pay your bills; what kind of barbaric society would allow a person's health to hinge on their wealth?" While we may n…

I have three minutes and about 3 million things I want to say. I begin by picking up where Deputy McGuinness left off, with MTU. The raising of the flag over the rebranded MTU was a very positive day for education in Cork, Kerry and the whole region. I acknowledge there are still issues that need to be resolved with the transition. It is important the Minister is aware of that and keeps those issues under review. None of them is insurmountable. They can be resolved and I hope they will be. I welcome the Bill. It is…

The Minister has received them.

The Minister has received them.

The Minister has them.

I commend the motion and the work of Deputy Ward, who has been an excellent advocate in terms of the issues around mental health. I echo his point that a 12% increase over the lifetime of the Government is quite ambitious. Sinn Féin's policies and this motion in terms of tackling some of these issues are also ambitious. The report in regard to what was happening in south Kerry is deeply alarming. It is very worrying. It is the stuff of nightmares for parents. The testimonies given by some of the parents were shocki…

The expansion of DEIS and the additional funding in 2022 was welcome. We have heard little about it or how the review or expansion are progressing since. I have written to the Minister's Department six times since last summer, looking for a meeting to discuss this, and have raised it at the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and through other channels. Will the Minister provide an update of the timeline for when schools can be expected to benefit from this …

I thank the Minister. Will she confirm that this will happen in September 2022? This is around the time that schools traditionally prepare their staff and schedules. They need this information quickly if they are going to benefit from a DEIS designation. I have raised this matter in the past. In the previous DEIS allocation around, there was a significant missed opportunity for DEIS band 2 schools that could have gained, relating to home school, community liaison, school completion measures and so on, but that did …

I welcome that. I received that communication today. I hope that happens. The basis on which that engagement will happen depends on where the process is. Are the criteria finalised? Can the Minister tell me that? That would have been an area that the Opposition might have hoped to offer constructive thoughts on. I am not sure I can think of a single Deputy who does not want to see DEIS expanded, who does not support the programme or does not want to see it deliver what it can. I do not know if there is a single Dep…

Is it finalised?

Tonight leaving certificate students and their families are hurt, frustrated and angry. I have received many emails, phone calls and messages and, to be honest, many students are absolutely gutted. They made it very clear the disruption to learning, the stress and anxiety, and the challenges in covering the course have been so significant that a hybrid model was the only way to ensure fairness, and I agree. The disruption to learning and the challenges in covering the course have been so significant that they felt,…

We will take it that the Minister agreed that it was warranted to look at the hybrid model. I will take that at face value given that the Minister had meetings around it and she explored it. The reasons that have been advanced against the hybrid model first assume that the leaving certificate is itself equitable in a given year, but that is not true. It is not entirely without merits but it has significant flaws. The other argument was that grade inflation would be too high. Today this has been turned on its head b…

Standardisation applies to the class cohort when you are trying to fill in a gap to achieve a baseline. It is not that the lack of individual results for that student, if it can be filled in, affects that individual student, but the Minister knows that. The point I am making on grade inflation is that until today the Government was presenting grade inflation as a reason not to do it, whereas the Minister has now built in a form of grade inflation. Maybe that is a mitigation that is needed with the model she has cho…

The other element of today's considerations relates to the junior certificate. Junior certificate students feel rather forgotten by the Department. Today's announcement barely made reference to them. The Minister's statement this afternoon referenced that junior cycle exams would run in June as normal. She has already acknowledged that the situation has been anything but normal for leaving certificate students. Surely, it has been nothing like normal for the past few years for third-year students too. In fact, ever…

I agree with having the examinations. That was my position any time I was asked but if everything had moved up a division, the approach taken for the leaving certificate would have been an appropriate solution to the junior certificate. It is very disappointing that no further adjustments have been made to the junior certificate papers. Leaving certificate students have understandably been prioritised for teaching substitutes, notwithstanding the absences that still exist, which are very considerable, according to …

I am aware of the changes to the CBAs but I do not see the consistency. I am disappointed that the Minister has not gone further in respect of the leaving certificate but, if we are to be consistent and we are acknowledging that the time lost to leaving certificate students was such that it required adjustments to the papers, why is it not the case that the time lost requires changes to be made to the junior certificate papers? Junior certificate students have experienced arguably more disruption due to school clos…

The issue of the leaving certificate has been raised. It is important we get an early decision. Reports in the media suggest that school historical results may be used in the standardisation of accredited grades. Two years ago, the Minister, Deputy Foley, correctly accepted that this would mean students in disadvantaged schools would lose out across the board. It is an elitist approach. There are viable alternatives in standardisation, including use of assessment tools as applied in the North, the use of rank order…

This Bill is long overdue. It has been proposed and discussed for decades, and was most recently brought back to the table by the former Minister, Phil Hogan, in 2014. There has been a register of a voluntary nature since 2014. I am not making a criticism of the construction industry in and of itself, but the phrase "self-regulation is no regulation" has come up in any number of Dáil debates. It is a phrase we regularly reflect upon for many sectors of life. In order to ensure that there is an adequate level of reg…

As the Taoiseach knows, the EPSEN Act came into law in July 2004. He was the Minister at the time. With its signing into law came great hope for children with special educational needs and their families. It contained many useful provisions but the reality is that in 2022 we are still waiting for the Act to be fully implemented. Children born in 2004 will turn 18 this year. Some of the supports they might have expected during their lifetime in school they will now not receive and they will have finished in the educ…