I thank Solidarity-People Before Profit for moving the motion and acknowledge the representation it has given to the Debenhams workers in the past 100 days and more. A couple of months ago, as the pandemic hit and we realised what its extent would be, it seemed we were all going to be in this together. The Government quickly introduced the pandemic unemployment payments to ensure people did not fall into poverty. We were protecting people. A couple of weeks later, Debenhams went into liquidation and the workers wer…

I refer the Tánaiste back to the world before Covid-19. In February 2013, the Tánaiste's predecessor as leader of Fine Gael and former Taoiseach, Mr. Enda Kenny, made a heartfelt and profound apology to victims and survivors of the Magdalen laundries. In May 2013 that apology came with a suite of recommendations from Mr. Justice John Quirke on how we could memorialise and give basic provisions to those survivors. Many of those promises have still not been fulfilled, and few of them are contained in the programme fo…

I do not blame the Labour Party for not showing up for this session. We are here to discuss Estimates but what we have before us is no reflection of what schools will look like when they open up in September. I welcome the Minister to her new role and wish her the best in that regard. However, I cannot understand why we are discussing Estimates that have no bearing on what education will look like in September. I do not accept that we might have the budget in a few weeks or that it could not have been presented as …

When can we expect the announcement of that budget and when will the Minister bring it to us? Will it be next week or the week after?

I move: That Dáil Éireann: recognises: — the structural problem of low pay in the Irish economy, resulting in many people living on the breadline, denying them the opportunity of a decent standard of living; — the precarious nature of many jobs, resulting in many workers being underemployed and dependent on welfare support; — the lack of entitlement to basic protections such as sick pay and statutory leave for many workers; — the increasing casualisation of work, with uncertainty about hours and days of work; — the…

I wish the Minister well in her new role and welcome her to the heart of Dublin's north inner city. I am not too sure about the auditorium we are in, but the location is spectacular. Given where we are located, I want to raise an issue that is locally relevant and nationally important and relates to the Estimates we are discussing. Like many places in Ireland, the north inner city is defined by its connection to the arts. If the Minister walks around the corner, she will see a statue of one of our greatest, Luke Ke…

As I have a statement full of questions, if there is any time at the end I will get to them.

I am conscious that some of the questions in my statement may be addressed in the guidelines that are being issued tomorrow and so I cannot understand why we did not get them in advance. This was also a frustrating aspect of the July and summer provision that was announced last Friday week, in that we had a debate on the Wednesday on the July and summer provision and then the announcement was made on a Friday. I am new to this House but it seems nonsensical to me that we cannot scrutinise these decisions in advance…

I think we get the best results from these sessions when we ask questions and get answers. As such, I will ask the Minister some questions, invite him to provide an answer and then come back on them. I apologise in advance for interjecting or rushing the Minister. There are a lot of questions to be asked. In the absence of any further clarity being provided today, I wish to go back to the statement on the summer education programme which was released by the Department last Friday. In it, the Minister is quoted as s…

With that additionality comes a great expectation that the Minister is placing on the teachers and SNAs who will be expected to deliver the programme. I want to talk further about the supports they might be offered. There was a lot about well-being in the Minister's opening contribution on this programme. What exactly does that look like in terms of the well-being programme in the schools? If teachers and SNAs are being asked to run the programme, are they equipped to support young people with such complex and dive…

It is very important that NEPS will be providing that support because it is a concern many schools have. I want to discuss a document the Minister will be familiar with and I was disappointed we did not get more information in his opening address today. The Minister is to take part in a call with DEIS schools on Friday. On Tuesday, they received this document containing the guidance for the summer programme. There is a lot of very welcome detail in that which I wish we had got today. I will try to outline some of t…

The Minister's comments differ somewhat from what is in the document. On page 5 of the document, under the heading of physical, social and emotional well-being, it states that students should be supported to be healthy, stay physically active and eat nutritious foods. There is a lot of guidance on well-being. These measures to support young people may be sufficient for the general support of all students but do they dig deep enough to support the complex, emotional and behavioural issues with which principals know …

The Minister used the phrase, "in the main". It is not just the exceptional cases, however, where these schools are experiencing trauma. The only document given to the schools on Tuesday highlights some real problems that are not just happening in one or two individual cases. They are being reported from schools across the board. They include a lack of digital voices, students not having access to the necessary technological skills, students not having appropriate space or facilities in which to work at home and th…

I am very conscious that as we sit here today and discuss education, students who would otherwise be doing their junior or leaving certificates or who would be going on school tours are sitting at home. In addition to the pandemic, which is affecting them in a multitude of ways, now when they turn on their television or social media they are faced with pictures of racial injustice and state-sponsored violence in the US. It is important to acknowledge and understand that and to position ourselves in respect of those…

I think we can all appreciate that these are exceptional times, but there was a moment within them when it seemed like we were all in this together. A crisis hit us and while we were rocked to our core, our instincts appeared to be to protect the collective. Across the political divide we found common ground in our understanding that this pandemic does not discriminate between rich and poor and the policies that we enacted quickly were ones that I would argue were founded in solid socially democratic principles. A …

That is a welcome statement. While some of the figures in the Revised Estimate are eye-watering, and certainly eye-catching in historic terms, they represent just how a republic should respond. We have experienced a catastrophe and this is how a republic should respond to protect the people who are most vulnerable. What will define us in this period are the lessons we have learned. There should be no more austerity on the table. So many people experienced austerity in the past decade and have not yet recovered. The…

Is it not Fine Gael's time?

I will make a brief opening statement and then ask questions and I might get the answers one after another if possible. There was much to admire in the Department's response to the Covid-19 crisis. It was swift and I cannot imagine the amount of work the officials and staff throughout the country engaged in. We really do owe them a debt of gratitude as we do to the Minister. She is the only Minister who has picked up the phone to me and let me know what is happening. I had to chase everyone else. I thank her for th…

I will not ask the Minister to comment on this but we need to consider who is in the room when these decisions are made. If trade union representatives were in the room, these gaps in the provisions, which exclude people, could be identified earlier. If we are going to be making further amendments, we probably need to widen the process of who is being included in the considerations. There is the issue of the Debenhams workers. When I think about this crisis, one of the images that will stick with me forever, which …

I thank the Minister and certainly echo those sentiments. I am interested in the sort of data we are collecting and collating at the moment and how we are going to apply the data. I have seen some statistics from the Office for National Statistics in the UK and they are really grim. They concern the occupations with the highest death rates linked to Covid-19 and, as one would imagine, the lower income workers in low-skilled, elementary occupations such as care and leisure and other services, and process, plant and …