Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 1 Dec 2022

It is also my great pleasure, and this is a very significant welcome now, to welcome the National School Gurchin in County Sligo, I assume. The principal there is Seamus Walsh, but there are two very interesting things from our point of view here. The grandniece of Senator Crocwell, Evie Conniff, is one of the teachers, and you are so welcome, and the niece of Senator Crocwell, Senator Crocwell, is Donna Broderick, and it is certainly in the DNA there, the Crocwells are teachers for many a day, and Senator Crocwell himself was President of the Teachers Union of Ireland. I am delighted to welcome the pupils, the teachers, and the principal is with you. It is great to have you here, as it is also great to have the other set of guests. Senator Crocwell. Welcome to all concerned. It is very important that we see the houses of democracy in action first hand. They are your houses. Senator Crocwell. Go to the last Cahirlec leader. Leader, the Cahirlec, our last Cahirlec just welcomed the Children of Gurchin National School from East Galway. What we are looking at is fifth and sixth class of the school, and this epitomises what goes on in Irish education. This is a small rural school where kids are being looked after, educated, and brought through the system, and our national schools is something we sometimes don't give them enough credit for the amount of work that they do. The principal is here today. He won't be home until late tonight, and again, people don't recognise this, but one of the key things, I think, and you've spoken on this yourself, Cahirlec, and you and I have spoken on it, is the shortage of teachers now in our country, and particularly to find that panels are not being filled, that special needs teachers, and this is a real bugbear of mine, special needs teachers are being taken out of their special needs role and put in to teach men. mainstream classes, and what is happening, and this goes back to my own time in further education, what is happening is the special needs child has been left aside, and we sadly, Senator Clonan spoke on this last week, families are having to go to the courts in order to get an education for their children, and that's all fine and dandy for the families that can afford it, it's not good enough for those who can't. We should cherish our children, cherish them an awful lot more, and it's a great source of pride for me to have the kids here from Gurchin, this is a great day for them, because they know this house is their house, not our house, and that they have as much access to anybody in this house as any other citizen of the state, and I'm really grateful that you gave them the welcome, and that all my colleagues gave them the welcome they got, so I'll leave it at that, Leader, thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, and the pupils of the National School might decide to do a project on the Shannon now, and you could feature the teacher's very famous relation here, who is a distinguished member of the house. You could do a special chapter on him.