Mattie McGrath: Warns of Education Funding Gaps as Schools Reopen

Minister, I too want to congratulate you and wish you well in your new role. We had and ministers of state, Collins and indeed the whole team and education is so important, so important from literally from the cradle to the grave, right from, you know, I know the university is here but it is very important and the whole, you know, usage of funding in that area and the new innovative section in the department, I hope it'll do well and I'm glad you've got news in the last hour that the Taoiseach has said that there'll be a cabinet decision on Monday regarding all schools reopening, they're all expected to reopen which is wonderful because it's been a very trying time for families, for students, for teachers as well, for boards of management, parents, councils and we had an education budget here, a vote here last week with new minister Foley and an estimate and there wasn't a shilling in it for the COVID provisions and that's a huge worry as a president who did serve on board of management at all levels in education, June, and NINRA and indeed a national school and at a third level, sorry, second level institution. So they worry because the students and I worked on the funding last night for the minor work schemes for all schools and new funding because there's always jobs to be done in the schools and, you know, the board of management are forced with decisions, you know, how can we spend this, we can't spend that, we haven't it. In basic repairs, there shouldn't be, I have to worry about, it should be done by the Department of Education. Having said that, Minister, I want to ask you about a new role and I heard your minister, I don't know if you're not minister, has he gone, but he was on my local radio this morning in Clonmel, so I mentioned some of the health projects that he was involved with and I would like to address and to examine, I know Insta Collins is here, and we set up a total level institution, I suppose 20 years ago now, maybe a bit more, the TRBDI, Tipperary Rural Business Development Institute. That has been since transposed into LIT and in Tipperary, Limerick University and Limerick IT and Tipperary. And quite honestly, ministers, we are the tail in the situation. We're not getting the recognition, we're not getting the supports, we're not getting the investment that we deserve in Tipperary. So there was all your promises with the amalgamation, but it's not happening. We have difficulties with relocating our site from the present site, which was built in, I think, three months. It's that the building is not suitable really, it's more suitable for, you know, a far more industrial building than it is for a university. So we hope to move, obviously, to Kikham, the former old site, to Kikham Barracks in Clonmel, and that other site can be used, the present site, and the bypass can be used for many other issues. So we need to get that going. We need to have the proper leadership, and I've contributed to the leadership in the past there, and all the lecturers and people who do some great work there. But we need to have the supports, because we're losing the brain drain, not from students, but from lecturers now. When you don't have proper emphasis and focus on an equal basis of the Tipperary section of the LIT Tipperary, people are going to vote at their feet. They're going to move to where they have the resources, where they have the recognition, and where they have all of that. So we need to be acutely aware of that. Again, there's many issues that debar people from going into a total level education. And being from rural Ireland, you know, people are at a huge disadvantage. And I want to thank the SUSIE people in the SUSIE department of students, grants SUSIE, because the acronym is on it, but they've been very helpful after being thrown into the deep end running it. But they are very helpful. But students are often disqualified because of a kilometre, because of the way they're measured for access grants, and for travel grants, and the travel distance. So there's huge anomalies there. And so unfair on students who want to go to a total level college. Their parents want to send them to a total level college. The community and the country needs them to have these degrees at this education. But because of sheer financial constraints, they can't do it. They will see a recognition in Ireland today. The people from rural areas, I was just entitled to have a total level education, as the people in the cities. I don't begrudge the people in the cities, and all the choice they have, and all the transport services they have. We don't have the transport services. But then we have a meagre grant system to give them assistance to go, but if you're half a kilometre, and it's often measured differently, and there's disputes over it, and they're ruled out. And this is a huge setback to students who want to further educate themselves, and want to play a part in our ever-growing economy. So that anomaly needs to be sorted out, because it's putting enormous pressure on parents, especially if they don't get the grants. I addressed it earlier in my comments to the Minister for Health about the student nurses, whether they be general or psychiatric, who came out, turning fourth level, to join the frontline services in this crisis. And they haven't got funding. They're getting some funding now, later, as an assistance rate, and I recognise that. But they are also losing out, as are students in all the colleges this summer, losing out on the Easter work, the summer work, the evening work, because everything is practically closed down. So there's huge pressure to put on parents, especially parents who don't get any grants, to try and pay and support their children in college. Huge pressure, and it's huge peer pressure as well, and it's awfully frustrating. So in the stimulus fund, I couldn't deal with that, but we need to have an education fund, I hope, when it's announced next week, or when we come back to revise estimates. I was surprised that the Minister hadn't a revised estimates, hadn't included the COVID fund in the revised estimates, because they need to be supported, because they're going back to college empty-handed in September. If they're going back to college in September, we hope they are. And they do cost a lot of money when they're at home, students, when they can't get out and work, because they're an extra expense on their family home. And it's well known in surveys that they spend more while, you know, when they're off, and when they're at home, they have to eat and they have to live. So, I mean, it's not that it's free. As I said, Minister, apprenticeships, and I hope at play, that you will really deal with this aggressively, because we have had, with the so-called bang, crash, and then the recovery, and the boom, we don't have the apprentices now. We have the school building program now being rolled out, the minor funding. Builders, small builders, can't get the carpenters, the plumbers, the block layers, the electricians, the sparks, we call them, all of, the whole range. We need that badly. And Chagas must be brought in here, and I've always mentioned, must be brought in to do courses of mechanics for machinery operators. It's a huge problem in the contracting business, you can't get operators, skilled operators. The machines now, the tractors, are just computerised, and you need to be, you need to totally agree to drive them, to understand them. But we need apprenticeships. If Farm Contractors of Ireland are looking for this, within a number of years, to get people back, because all people aren't going to be walking behind a desk or walking on a computer, we need people to work on machinery, and on construction sites, and on construction equipment, and understand that. So we need to, to prejudice, Chagas needs a total revamp. So I hope that the Department of Education and Chagas can link together, and spend the money more, more, more, more prudently, and more wisely. But we have to be new, and we have to be innovative, and we have to be, challenge ourselves, and challenge our young people. Because no one, no one, no one, relatively challenge more than the young people. More than all, I know, I was chucking cheese. That's the old adage. I'm not saying they're young, but they are young, young people in, in, in the business. And we need those people in reception and development. We need them in, in, in, in, in all kinds of issues. And I, I even get a CV from a young man in Tipperary, uh, who went through Trinity, looking for, uh, um, um, um, um, um, internship, or indeed some, simply work. The CV was mind-boggling, the amount of extra courses, extra curricular, and the amount of, of, of, of, of degree, the, the courses and degrees he had passed in Trinity. And also, the jobs he did inside, and the student unions, and the students, um, representatives, and the different, and he excelled in all of them. And the summer work that he did, and the placements he got. So the employers value these students as well, and they know that they want to learn, they know they wanted to, to go ahead. So, as I said, we need to, uh, as, uh, have CHAC is totally, uh, reformed. Uh, agriculture is ever-changing. Needs are, especially now with our green economy. And the young people, and the young farmers are up for the challenge as well. And the farmers in general have been up for the challenge of, uh, dealing with carbon issues, and dealing with debt, but they need, they need the supports. So, there's lots of issues in education, and it is an issue, uh, Minister, like in a lump of, when we now we have, you know, three new, uh, three super-jewners. I remember a four-year-old when, when, when that happened back in the 80s. I remember a four-year-old more recent years, when one was appointed, but now there's three. And one is not even elected to this house. No, this is not her house, it's a temporary house, but to the Dáil. One was appointed to the Senate. There is that room in the Constitution to, to do that. But then to try and insist on a higher, uh, salary, it sticks in the craw of people who are trying to survive. It sticks in the craw of the people I talked about, who want to send their kids back to college. And they're under enormous pressure because the kids, the children couldn't get the summer jobs and the nighttime jobs that they had. So, it is an issue. It is a huge issue. And we might think we are lost in COVID payments and everything else. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, we want to show example to the people out there who are suffering. The people who want to engage and embrace the change and the new, the new, the new, the new times that we have. So, I think we have to be very careful with this here and, and it's just not, um, fair or right because I'm not singing out who she is or what, because she's green, but the fact that she's a senator and going to go from a senator's wage to a general minister and then to increase it by 16,000 or well. I think it's, it's just not sitting right with me. It doesn't sit right with my constituents and doesn't sit right by the people. Thank you.