Several principals from the National Principals’ Forum were part of a delegation of primary principals who, on Wednesday, June 19th, made a presentation to Senators, TDs, and their officials in the AV Room of Leinster House. We laid bare the stark reality of life in our Irish primary schools.
We focused on three main areas:
- The role and pressure on principals- in particular, teaching principals
- The Ancillary Grant debacle and funding in schools in general
- The NCSE/ Dept. profiling in schools and how complex needs are no longer a criteria. (There is a lack of accurate data and we are calling on the
Government to use POD to gather a fuller picture)
It might interest you to hear that one politician present asked why this information had never been laid out in clear terms like that before by any stakeholder.
Please see the fact sheet below that all politicians were provided with.
Holly Cairns TD (Leader of Soc. Dems.) was the first to bring the issues to Leaders Questions on Thursday the 20th of June (Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí- 20 June 2024: Dáil debates (KildareStreet.com)) Tánaiste Mícheál Martin TD’s reply was, frankly, insulting to all school leaders and to Ms. Cairns herself.
Ms. Marian Harkin TD, along with Michael McNamara and Thomas Pringle, as part of the independent Group, tabled a Private Members’ Motion on June 26th which sought to address all the concerns we had raised. Each politician spoke, one after the other, outlining our cause. Ministers Norma Foley and Hildegarde Naughton were left in the position of having to accept what was presented before them as factual and the Government, quite surprisingly, accepted the motion in its entirety, without amendment.
The debate lasted two hours and the following link is a transcript of all the speakers. It lifted our hearts to finally hear an accurate description of our schools being portrayed accurately.
If you have time, we recommend that you sit down to read or view this at some stage so that you can also feel heard:
Transcript:
https://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2024-06-26a.34
Video (from about 00:59):
https://media.heanet.ie/page/7e5077e8775f4d26aca91ffeca2db1a9
Since the presentation and debate, we have forged links with many politicians and parties and we will continue to fight for the integrity of our profession.