Pat Sheehan
West Belfast · Sinn Féin · Northern Ireland
“I thank the Member for giving way. Does she agree that the Minister's School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill was poor legislation and a missed opportunity?”
“The last point that you made reminded me of one of the witnesses — a young girl — who came to the Committee. During the winter, she wore her own overcoat, but she had to take it off 100 yards from the school gate because she was not allowed to wear it into the school.”
“Agus iad ag ullmhú le haghaidh scrúduithe GCSE agus ard-leibhéil, féadann an imní agus an éiginnteacht sin drochthionchar a imirt ar a n-oideachas agus ar a bhfolláine.”
“Is scannalach go deo an foréigean ciníoch a chonaic muid le seachtain anuas. Tá ionsaithe ar theaghlaigh, ar thithe agus ar ghnólachtaí doleithscéil, agus tá siad dochosanta. Níor cheart eagla a mbáis a bheith ar dhaoine neamhurchóideacha mar gheall ar a gcine, a gcúlra ná a gcreideamh.”
“One of the reasons, Daniel, is that, if we were to have blocked the Bill at the Executive, the SDLP would be saying tomorrow morning "This place is dysfunctional. You're blocking legislation. Sinn Féin is blocking legislation, and the DUP is blocking legislation". No, we are not blocking legislation.”
“I have not once today argued against inspections. Not once. The Bill is about one thing and one thing only: intimidating and punishing teachers.”
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“My intervention is on the back of the Member's interaction with Mr Brooks. Can the Member think of any rational explanation for why any school should have autonomy to determine and control what clothes a girl wears to school?”
“The last point that you made reminded me of one of the witnesses — a young girl — who came to the Committee. During the winter, she wore her own overcoat, but she had to take it off 100 yards from the school gate because she was not allowed to wear it into the school. Come rain, hail, snow or whatever, she had to take her overcoat off and walk the rest of the way to school without it on. That was another area that the Minister could have resolved in his legislation. He did not do it. He did not want to do it. That was a disgrace, and we ended up with very poor legislation.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. Does she agree that the Minister's School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill was poor legislation and a missed opportunity? We have the issue of all pupils being allowed to wear trousers, but there were also issues that the Committee would like to have dealt with to ensure that affordability was addressed in the Bill. The Committee's amendments were not accepted. Had there been enough time left in the mandate, the Committee would have introduced a much more wide-ranging and stronger Bill, rather than one that deals just with the issue of all pupils being allowed to wear trousers.”
“The situation is once again at crisis point. What specific, strategic planning did his Department undertake over the past 12 months? Can he explain why that planning has failed?”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a fhreagra.”
“There is a clear disconnect between what the Minister says and the reality of what teachers are dealing with. Will he explain why, if his plans and proposals are working, teachers are being balloted on industrial action on the issue of workload?”
“Agus iad ag ullmhú le haghaidh scrúduithe GCSE agus ard-leibhéil, féadann an imní agus an éiginnteacht sin drochthionchar a imirt ar a n-oideachas agus ar a bhfolláine. Níor cheart rogha a bheith le déanamh ag dalta ar bith idir bheith ar a shuaimhneas nó gabháil ar scoil, níor cheart eagla a bheith ar thuismitheoirí a bpáistí a chur ar scoil ar maidin. Tá ról tábhachtach le himirt ag scoileanna, ag múinteoirí agus ag foirne cúnta le cuidiú leis na páistí ar bhain na heachtraí deireanacha dóibh, ach ní mór na hacmhainní agus an chomhairle chuí a bheith acu le sin a dhéanamh. <BR /> <BR />Ná téimis ar chúl scéithe leis: níl aon áit ag an chiníochas inár sochaí. Tá sé de cheart ag gach páiste, beag beann ar a aicme, a mhothú féin go bhfuil sé sábháilte, go bhfuil sé faoi mheas agus go bhfuil fáilte roimhe ina scoil agus ina shochaí.”
“Is scannalach go deo an foréigean ciníoch a chonaic muid le seachtain anuas. Tá ionsaithe ar theaghlaigh, ar thithe agus ar ghnólachtaí doleithscéil, agus tá siad dochosanta. Níor cheart eagla a mbáis a bheith ar dhaoine neamhurchóideacha mar gheall ar a gcine, a gcúlra ná a gcreideamh. <BR /> <BR />Is ar an neamhord phoiblí a díríodh an chuid is mó den aird, agus is ceart gur díríodh, ach caithfimid a aithint fosta go ndeachaidh an t-achrann i gcion ar pháistí ó phobail mionlaigh eitneacha. D’amharc cuid mhór daoine óga ar a raibh ag tarlú ar líne agus ina bpobail féin agus a sáith imní orthu. Tá eagla ar chuid acu taisteal, tá eagla orthu gabháil ar scoil, agus tá eagla orthu go ndéanfar ionsaí orthu mar gheall ar a n-aicme.”
“I never mentioned majority. What I said was "single-party unionist regime". Those were the old days, when you could push through whatever you wanted in a ramstam way. In 50 years, nationalists succeeded in having only one piece of legislation enacted, and that was about wild birds. Those days are over. They are gone, and they are not coming back, I am sorry to tell you.”
“Will the Minister be corrected on what he said?”
“That is only thing that you want to do. You want to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when negotiating and coming to agreement is the way in which to move forward on all the issues that involve child protection and child safeguarding.”
“Why can you not do that for the sake of children, child safeguarding and the protection of children? Why can you not come to an agreement? Instead, you want to withdraw the rights of workers to take industrial action and impose some sort of sanction on them.”
“I agree with what you say, insofar as children should be at the centre of the Bill. However, as I mentioned in an intervention when Mr Brooks, I think, was speaking, when it comes to the issue of restrictive practices on children, you cannot come to an agreement with some of the foremost organisations that have expertise in that field. Similarly, you cannot come to an agreement on the issue of inspections and trade unions. There are other areas in which that is true as well. I said earlier that the theme was the Minister, but it is not: the theme is conflict, and the common denominator is the Minister. For whatever reason, you find it impossible to work with trade unions, the Children's Law Centre, the RCN and other stakeholders in all of those areas of conflict.”
“Once again, the Minister has misrepresented the position. There was not unanimous support for the legislation at the Executive. There was unanimous support to let it proceed to the Floor. There may be certain voting rules that apply to the ministerial team in the Executive, but they do not apply to parties. We are absolutely clear: we will not allow teachers to be criminalised, and we will not allow sanctions to be placed on them, especially when no one knows what the amorphous, nebulous sanctions that have been talked about will look like. We will not have teachers suffer because you want to ramstam a piece of legislation through so that you can say, "Oh, look what I've done. I'm a great guy".”
“Nobody has any doubt that that is the way forward. Let us go and do it. However, if we look at what is happening here, we see conflict between the Minister, teachers and trade unions. If we look at the issue of restrictive practices and the task and finish group, we see conflict between the Minister, the Royal College of Nursing and the Children's Law Centre. If we look at the issue of SEN regulations, we see conflict between the Minister, the Children's Law Centre, the trade unions and other stakeholders. The common theme is that the Minister seems to be in conflict all the time when he should be working collegiately and in partnership with stakeholders to resolve the issues. He does not want to do that, however; he wants to ramstam things through. That is a big part of the problem.”
“It is not the responsibility of anyone other than the Education Minister to change his own draft legislation. You see, you are using terminology that has a completely different meaning here on the Floor of the Assembly, where people can amend legislation that comes on to the Floor of the Assembly. Were we happy with teachers being criminalised in a piece of legislation? No. We made that clear at the Executive. The Minister changed it. He did not change it in a way that completely satisfied us, but we were prepared to let it go on to the Floor of the Assembly. Tell me what part of that you do not understand, and I will try better to explain it to you.”
“First of all, Sinn Féin did not amend anything. The Minister changed his own draft legislation. That is what happened. However, we were not in favour of teachers being criminalised. We were not then and we are not now. That is why we allowed it to follow the democratic and legislative route: on to the Floor of the Assembly, and then, if Members voted for it to go through to Committee Stage, well and good. If not, well and good. That is the process. That is the way that it works. That is the way that it is supposed to work. It is what is known as democracy.”
“We are opposed to sanctions on teachers; we are not opposed to inspections. It is quite simple. That might be hard for you to grasp, but it is really simple.”
“You have made that point on quite a number of occasions today. I am just wondering why you continue to misrepresent our position by saying that we are opposed to inspections when we have not once said that. Can you explain why you keep saying that we are?”
“I thank the Member for giving way. One thing that has become clear during the debate is that we do not know what the sanction will be. If we do not know what the sanction will be, how can we amend it? That does not make any sense.”
“Sinn Féin stands with our teachers. We stand with our school staff, and we will oppose the Bill.”
“<BR /> <BR />We should not be surprised by the DUP's hostility to trade unions and workers' rights either. Just look at its approach to the 'good jobs' Bill, a package of measures designed to strengthen rights and protections for workers, yet, time and again, it has sought to delay, frustrate and obstruct its progress. The public see through it, teachers see through it, school staff see through it, and we see through it. The Bill is not about improving education and inspections or supporting teachers. It is about control, punishment and intimidating workers who dare to stand up for themselves, and we reject that approach entirely. The Minister should go back to the drawing board, focus on tackling the real problems facing schools and start working with teachers instead of against them.”
“His answer is to threaten, intimidate and punish teachers. Rather than addressing the workload crisis in schools and dealing with teacher burnout, recruitment pressures and the many challenges facing our education system, the Minister has chosen to target one of the few mechanisms available to teachers to challenge those conditions. <BR /> <BR />Are we really surprised by his attempts to intimidate teachers? This is the same Minister who belatedly admitted that a senior civil servant in his Department had accused him of bullying. The same Minister who has repeatedly shown contempt for those who disagree with him and who now wants the Assembly to endorse legislation that places teachers in the firing line for taking part in lawful industrial action.”
“I have not once today argued against inspections. Not once. The Bill is about one thing and one thing only: intimidating and punishing teachers. The Minister and the DUP can spin whatever yarn they like about inspections, TransformED or school improvement, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of education here knows exactly what this legislation is about. Its purpose is to undermine action short of strike and to expose teachers to allegations of unacceptable professional conduct for taking part in what is currently lawful industrial action. <BR /> <BR />I said before that the Education Minister had lost the dressing room, and that is the reality. Paul Givan has failed to convince teachers on the front line to buy into his harmful agenda, so what is his answer? Not engagement and certainly not partnership.”
“I agree with the contribution from my party colleague. Let me just say one thing. Our teachers are safeguarding children every day. Our teachers are safeguarding children every day. Every day, our teachers are safeguarding children. Yes?”
“You cannot tell us to block legislation and then tell us that we should be letting stuff through.”
“One of the reasons, Daniel, is that, if we were to have blocked the Bill at the Executive, the SDLP would be saying tomorrow morning "This place is dysfunctional. You're blocking legislation. Sinn Féin is blocking legislation, and the DUP is blocking legislation". No, we are not blocking legislation. Rather, we are letting legislation come to the House. Clause 3 originally would have criminalised teachers. We said that we were not accepting that. We said that we would not let that provision come to the House. The Minister has since changed the clause to something amorphous. We do not know what the hell it is, but we decided to let the Bill go through, because our argument was that we were not going to allow teachers to be criminalised, and we are not. We are standing with teachers. You cannot have it both ways, Daniel.”
“Let me finish this point, and I will then give way to you. <BR /> <BR />The Education Committee will be very busy between now and the end of the mandate. We know that the Minister has other legislation coming through, that the Committee has its own Bill to introduce and that there are a number of private Members' Bills for the Committee to discuss. This Bill will take up a lot of time in Committee. It will take up time in here. Why waste that time? Why does the Minister not stand up and say, "I'm going to take out the clause. We'll deal with the clauses that are left and then look at the issue again, if not in this mandate, early in the next mandate"?”
“Under other circumstances, I might agree with the Chair of the Committee. We have this dog's dinner of a clause in clause 3, however. We do not think that it can be amended and still have the same scope. We are not sure that, even if we could amend the clause, the amendment would be accepted by the Speaker.”
“There is now to be some other type of sanction, which nobody knows anything about. How do we change that? The issue of amendments has been raised in the Chamber today. We know the difficulties with amendments. There is no guarantee that an amendment will be accepted for debate. The Minister could stand up here later today and say, "I'm happy to change the Bill so that there won't be any sanction against teachers. I am happy to take out that clause". The Chair of the Committee mentioned this on numerous occasions during his contribution, so the Minister could say, "I now understand the fragility of the relationship between the Department and teachers". If the Minister were to say that, perhaps we would take a different view.”
“First, we will vote down the Bill today because we do not think that there is a lot of room to change it. The main feature of the Bill is that, if teachers obstruct inspections, there will be a sanction. We do not know what that sanction will be. The Minister cannot even tell us what that sanction will be. Previously, we objected in the Executive on the grounds that teachers would be criminalised if they obstructed an inspection.”
“— they can let it pass. <BR /> <BR />Go ahead, Danny.”
“I will make a final point about legislation passing through the Assembly: the Minister has to remember that there is no longer a single-party unionist regime through which he can push through legislation in a ramstam way. This is now a democratic Chamber, and Members will have their say. If they do not like something, they can block it, and, if they like it —”
“At the minute, Jonny, I am speaking for Sinn Féin. <BR /> <BR />You said that legislation is a lengthy process. It is funny that the Education Minister did not think that when his School Uniforms Bill was going through the Committee; he wanted that process to be condensed. To my shame, we acquiesced to that request because we were told by officials that, once we saw —.”
“The Executive should allow the 'good jobs' Bill to come to the Floor of the Assembly. It has been blocked in the Executive for long enough by the DUP. That is not just the case with the 'good jobs' Bill; any amount of pieces of legislation are being blocked. It is probably true that most of them are not Sinn Féin Bills and that Bills from other parties are also being blocked. <BR /> <BR />Go ahead, Jonny. You are jumping up and down there.”
“I will give way to whichever one of you gets up first.”
“We hear people in the community who do not understand the workings of legislation in particular say, "We need a new law for this; we need a new law for that. Why does the Assembly not bring in a law for whatever?". Of course, it takes time. My private Member's Bill — a small, two-clause Bill — has taken over two years — nearly two and a half years — to get to the stage that it is at now. I accept that Executive legislation takes priority, but the Minister will not get his way overnight. Of course, there will be discussions in the Executive. The Minister cannot just throw down a paper on the Executive table and expect everybody to say, "Oh, yes, let's go. Let's send it to the Assembly".”
“Not at the minute. <BR /> <BR />Sinn Féin has allowed the legislative and democratic process to take its course in the Assembly. That is what democracy is all about. Legislation comes to the Floor; we have the opportunity to debate it; we go back and forth across the Chamber; we can vote in whichever way, we decide, we want to at the end of the debate; and, as the Chair of the Committee said, everybody has the right to amend or vote down the legislation. That is what will happen. That is the democratic process. I do not know why the Minister is concerned about that. <BR /> <BR />At the opening of his contribution, the Minister made the point that he has had the Bill since November 2024. One of the issues that need to be nailed is that legislation is formulated overnight.”
“Let me say this: Sinn Féin Ministers approving a Bill to move forward to the Assembly is not and should not be taken as approval of any legislation or Bill. The Minister should remember that. He has said that on numerous occasions.”
“Ordinarily, if I heard a DUP Member, especially a Minister, quoting Nelson Mandela, one of the great leaders, human beings and political ex-prisoners of the 20th and 21st centuries, I would look on it as a sign of progress. However, in quoting Madiba, the Minister's action was so cynical as to undermine whatever intention he had had in mind. Minister, if you want to talk about Mandela, I will be happy, as someone who met him, was in his company and shared some of the experiences of imprisonment, to do so any time that you want. <BR /> <BR />The issue arose of the Executive having allowed the Bill to be introduced in the Assembly. The Minister has spoken previously of the Executive's "approving" legislation as they release it from the Executive and allow it to come to the Assembly.”
“The latest data that I have heard about inspections is that schools are inspected, on average, every eight to 10 years.”
“I acknowledge the work of the Communities in Transition delivery partners alongside the energetic and vibrant community groups, as well as Féile, which work 365 days a year to build a West Belfast that is inclusive, welcoming, confident and safe. Does the Minister agree that building strong and resilient communities is the key to tackling criminality?”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire shóisearach as ucht a freagra.”
“Keep cheerleading the supply of munitions to the Israelis to bomb children in Gaza.”
“I wonder whether there was any causal connection between the illegal war against Iran and the increase in petrol prices. Funnily enough, the Iranians told everyone beforehand what they would do if they were attacked. They said that they would block the Strait of Hormuz, which would affect the global economy, and they did just that. Keep cheerleading the illegal wars.”
“I thank the Member for that intervention. Of course, the process to build the A5 is ongoing. Court proceedings are under way, and I do not want to say anything to compromise those court proceedings in any way. However, the Minister has assured the House on any number of occasions that she is confident that the A5 will be built. If I am to believe anyone, I will believe the Minister on that. <BR /> <BR />Some, including the Member's colleagues, have supported the diversion of billions of pounds into greater militarisation. Many of them have also been cheerleaders for the illegal attacks by the US and Israel on Iran. They then displayed their brass necks when they stood in the Chamber and expressed concern about the increases in fuel prices.”
“Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.”
“We have school buildings with roofs at risk of collapse and classrooms that are not fit for purpose, and we are told that there is no way to prioritise fixing them, yet, somehow, there is money for a state-of-the-art pitch in a school that is already awash with sporting facilities. Let us not forget that we give taxi operators £83 per mile to bring children to school. Yes, there are difficult choices in the Budget, but DUP representatives stand in the Chamber and say, without a hint of irony, that departmental budgets should be used efficiently and effectively.”
“At the same time, we see hundreds of thousands being spent on a phone pouch gimmick and millions being poured into a regressive and harmful reform agenda that was lifted straight from the failed experiment carried out by Michael Gove in England. At a time when the independent review of education has called for simplification and a move towards a single management authority, the DUP wants to go in the opposite direction with more duplication. Another management body, another layer of bureaucracy: how many more millions will that cost? We know that the initial costing is £1·2 million to set it up, with recurrent funding of over £1·2 million every year thereafter.”
“However, while public services are under immense pressure, there are also questions to be asked about political priorities and waste. Frankly, the DUP needs to take a look at itself in that regard. <BR /> <BR />Let us look at the DUP's record, particularly in the Department of Education, where it has been in charge for a decade now. In a number of reports, the Audit Office has found that, despite hundreds of millions of pounds being spent on SEN provision, neither the Department nor the Education Authority could demonstrate value for money. Hundreds of millions have been spent, but there is no evidence that the DUP is delivering.”