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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“Assembly staff need training so that they can anticipate policies or procedures that may have an adverse impact on women fulfilling their role as elected representatives on an equal footing with their male colleagues. <BR /> <BR />I send my solidarity to all female colleagues from all parties on this International Women's Day.”
“How can we attract women into politics if we do not make the effort to provide childcare? The Assembly needs to set an example by establishing childcare facilities for Members. <BR /> <BR />In politics, women suffer more than men with harassment and abuse, both within politics and on social media. I noted Paula's comments that the heckling that used to be common in the Chamber has ended. I remember the Women's Coalition, in particular, complaining about male Members mooing when they got up to speak. I am glad to say that that is a thing of the past. There have also been many instances of misogynistic, hateful and sexist abuse towards female politicians from all parties on social media. Greater deterrents are needed to end that type of behaviour. Awareness training is also needed to get women into politics.”
“<BR /> <BR />However, we here on our own will not resolve what is a deeply rooted societal problem of inequality. Education clearly has a role to play in encouraging girls to pursue what could be seen as non-traditional subjects such as science, technology, engineering and maths. There should also be mandatory subjects in schools relating to gender relations and the empowerment of girls and women. <BR /> <BR />As was highlighted, childcare is an obstacle for many women. Data from NISRA shows that the most common reason for economic inactivity among men has been identified as sickness or disability. However, for women, the most common reason is unpaid caring responsibilities. It is a fact that women, in the main, take on caring responsibilities, especially for children.”
“It rests with us, as political leaders, to set an example. While there have been improvements in here over the years, there is still a long way to go before we have a genuinely fair and gender-sensitive institution. <BR /> <BR />There are, of course, many barriers that must be overcome before we reach that holy grail, not least the fact that this institution is not family-friendly. I am constantly amazed by the ability of my female colleagues not just in my party but across the parties to carry out their role as elected representatives, which includes late-night sittings and meetings in the evenings after we finish here. This is no nine-to-five job with 37·5 hours a week. We are constantly on call, and there is no doubt that that impinges on and intrudes into family life.”
“I thank the Women's Caucus for tabling this very important motion on this, Lá Idirnáisiúnta na mBan — International Women's Day. You just have to look at the membership of the Assembly to see that women are still badly under-represented. Female under-representation cannot be seen in isolation from the way that society in general is organised and the gender inequality that exists in day-to-day life for women. Even today, a report in the media suggests that, on average, a young woman who is starting out on her working life today will, when she reaches retirement age, end up with £100,000 less in her pension pot than a man. That is not right. That is just one small example of how women are disadvantaged, but there are many more. <BR /> <BR />We in the Assembly have a responsibility to try to ensure that gender equality is a priority.”
“I hope that we get our priorities right and ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are taken care of.”
“Only last week, I had complaints from stakeholders in the Irish-medium sector about documentation and other written material that had clearly been translated from English to Irish on Google Translate. It was just mumbo jumbo and made absolutely no sense. If someone tells me that that is value for money in some way, I will tell them that they are talking through their hat, because that will have to be done again. It is totally unacceptable. It is an insult to the Irish-medium sector and an insult to the children who are in those schools. I speak as a parent of two children who are in the Irish-medium sector. <BR /> <BR />To conclude, I again express my thanks to the Finance Minister for the initiatives that he has taken forward over the past year. I look forward to what will be a challenging year.”
“Many of those schools are doing so in substandard and crumbling buildings. That is particularly true for the Irish-medium sector, where many schools have remained in so-called temporary accommodation for over 20 years despite the sector growing rapidly in that time. Children deserve better than inadequately funded schools and Portakabin accommodation. The Irish-medium sector also needs to be adequately funded for the unique challenges that it faces, not just in general terms but in the context of the pandemic. When the sector asked for signage that was being provided to every other school, it was told that it would have to translate it itself.”
“Absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment. The Audit Office referenced hundreds of millions of pounds going into special educational needs but the children and their parents not getting value for money. That is a disgrace, and it needs to be resolved. It is a problem that has been there for a long time. Leadership is needed. The Minister needs to give leadership. The Education Authority also needs to stand up and take responsibility for the shortcomings that have been present in that organisation. Ministers need to be responsible and accountable for the large sums of money that they are allocated. In this case, the Education Minister must also provide an effective and strategic response. <BR /> <BR />I referred to the inadequate core budgets that many of our schools are trying to operate with.”
“The waiting times for children being assessed for statements of special educational needs are unacceptable. Those children and their parents are not getting the proper support that they need within the timescale that they should expect.”
“It was disappointing, therefore, to read the Audit Office report on special educational needs, which found that, despite the hundreds of millions of pounds that the Department of Education and the Education Authority have spent on supporting some of our most vulnerable children, neither could demonstrate value for money. That is unacceptable.”
“However, the money that was allocated to that and the nature of the project will not cut the mustard in the face of all the problems that we will face in the time ahead. We need to equip our schools with the resources that they need to support our children, whether those are additional counselling services, well-being initiatives or other supports. Of course, sporting organisations, such as Ulster Rugby, the GAA, the IFA and so on, can also be part of the strategy. <BR /> <BR />The point has been made that some Ministers need to take greater responsibility for how they spend their budget in these difficult financial circumstances.”
“Organisations such as that need to be involved in any sort of strategy that the Minister puts in place. <BR /> <BR />We need some sign from the Minister that he is even thinking about a strategy and that he will make a bid. There is £300 million sitting there, about £200 million of which is resource funding, so he cannot dither. Dithering has been a characteristic of his tenure in office so far. He needs to make a move now. <BR /> <BR />At a time when we are severely restricted in what we can do financially, we must prioritise the mental health and well-being of our children and young people. That must be the priority as schools reopen. I acknowledge the fact that the Minister, after the lockdown last spring, put in place the Engage programme to help kids who had missed out on learning.”
“<BR /> <BR />In my constituency, the West Belfast Partnership Board is involved in many schemes that assist, in particular, children and young people who may be falling behind in their learning, including those sitting on borderline passes in important subjects such as maths and English. Many who have been involved in the Education Committee will be aware that, every Easter, in St Mary's University College, the partnership runs schools for children who are sitting on a borderline C/D in maths or English. There were difficulties last year because of the pandemic, of course, and there may be again this year. English and maths are important for getting into university and applying for jobs, so those were identified as important subjects. The pass rate among the kids who attend those Easter schools is well above 80%.”
“I have said in the Committee, and I say it here again, that, given the mental health and well-being difficulties that our children and young people are facing, the Education Minister needs to make a serious and ambitious bid for some of the COVID funding that can be carried over into next year. He needs to put in place a coherent and integrated cross-departmental strategy to deal with all of the well-being issues. He needs to involve the Health Department and, probably, the Department for Communities. He needs to bring on board the community and voluntary sector, which has a lot of expertise in not just the field of education but well-being and mental health.”
“It has also been one of the strongest arguments for the reopening of schools that the mental health and well-being of young children is being damaged, and we need to get them back. They need that interaction with other children and the normal development that happens in schools.”
“Unfortunately, with the resources that they have provided, it will not be possible to achieve that, which is particularly concerning in the context of COVID and all the disruption that that has brought. Extended breaks in classroom learning have been difficult for young people and will no doubt have profound consequences. Our schools and teachers desperately need the necessary resources so that they are equipped to begin the process of rebuilding their pupils' mental health and well-being and of supporting their education recovery. <BR /> <BR />I also mentioned yesterday that Professor Siobhán O'Neill, the mental health champion, gave evidence to the Committee some weeks ago, and she agreed with the assessment that a tsunami is coming at us with the mental health and well-being of our children in schools.”
“It is the kids who do not have access to proper IT devices who will fall behind in their learning, and there is greater incidence of mental health issues in disadvantaged communities, and children will also suffer in that respect. <BR /> <BR />I have to say that, without the global pandemic to contend with, our education system was already on the brink of a financial crisis. Starved of investment for 10 years as a result of Tory austerity, the system was facing up to a £400 million shortfall, and, in New Decade, New Approach, the British Government committed to investing in our schools to ensure that they would once again have access to sustainable core budgets.”
“The Minister of Finance had already provided funding for holiday hunger, and it hardly got a mention. This concerns all of us in the Chamber and all parties, because the media are often very critical of what is done here, particularly in the Executive, and of what steps are taken to alleviate particular difficulties in society. Here was one case where, across the water, the fact that a footballer had embarrassed the Tories into providing funding for this issue got massive publicity. Here, when the Executive decided to provide for that and the Finance Minister allocated the funding, it hardly got a mention. I suppose that that is what we have come to expect from some elements of the media here. <BR /> <BR />Of course, we all know that disadvantaged kids will suffer disproportionately in all this.”
“Fair play to Marcus Rashford; he should be highly commended for the campaign that he ran. He was able to use his celebrity position to bring pressure to bear on the Tory Government. He comes from a less than affluent background and was able to empathise with young children from a similar background who were suffering because they usually depend on free school meals during term time, and they were left without in the holidays. As I mentioned yesterday, Marcus Rashford got a gong for that from the Queen. I am no great supporter of the honours system, but it has to be acknowledged and applauded that he got that. <BR /> <BR />Marcus Rashford's campaign received widespread media coverage for quite a long time, yet here we were well ahead of the curve.”
“I mentioned yesterday the campaign of the Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford and how that pressurised the Tory Government into providing funding for meals outside the school terms.”
“Once again, I put on record how grateful I am that we have a Finance Minister who works on behalf of our most vulnerable citizens, workers and families and who recognises the need to prioritise investment in children and young people and their futures, despite the limited resources that are available to him and his Department. <BR /> <BR />At critical junctures over the last 12 months, the Finance Minister has allocated significant sums to the Department of Education for its response to the pandemic. I commend the Minister for his allocations that supported children with special educational needs — £10 million was given to that — and funding for holiday hunger, which amounted to £30·6 million.”
“I was going to go down to the canteen to have my dinner. <BR /> <BR />Yesterday, I referenced the hope and expectation that the NDNA agreement brought last year, particularly in the British Government and their responsibilities to the people here. Pledges to invest in our public services and commitments to multi-year Budgets, which would provide stability and allow Ministers to plan for the future, have disappeared like snow off a ditch. The British Government have reneged again on their promises and commitments. Quelle surprise. <BR /> <BR />The Finance Minister is in the unenviable position of delivering another Budget in the context of the global pandemic and all the difficulties that it provides, along with the previous 10 years of Tory austerity and, most likely, more to come.”
“I am surprised that he did not go on for another two hours.”
“Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle agus gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht an ráitis seo inniu. I thank the Minister for her statement. The publication of that pathway document will be welcomed by most people across our communities insofar as it signals a return to some sort of normality in our lives. Will the Minister detail the process that will determine movement between the different phases in the easing of restrictions?”
“— and so on. He needs to make that bid and he needs to do it quickly.”
“He does not have a lot of time to do it, but he needs to involve teachers and their unions, children, the community and voluntary sector, sporting organisations —”
“I have called on the Education Minister to make a substantial and ambitious bid for some of the £300 million in COVID funding — this is one positive thing — that the Executive are allowed to carry over. <BR /> <BR />Moving ahead, we need a comprehensive, coordinated and integrated strategy to deal with lost learning and emotional and mental well-being as kids go back to school. It has to be extensive; I acknowledge the £11·2 million Engage programme that the Minister put in place after the first lockdown, but that is not enough to deal with the problems that are going to be coming down the tracks shortly. <BR /> <BR />I am calling on the Minister of Education to put in place a substantial bid and to make sure that he has a plan and a strategy in place to deal with the issues that children will be facing in schools.”
“This is particularly concerning in the context of COVID, because there will be consequences for children having missed so much time at school, in lost learning and emotional and mental health issues. <BR /> <BR />Giving evidence to the Education Committee a few weeks ago, the mental health champion, Professor Siobhan O'Neill, agreed with the assessment that there is a tsunami of emotional and mental health issues coming at us down the tracks. Our children have been badly affected by the pandemic because they have missed school and social interactions and so on. Many children will have fallen behind in their school work. In most cases, it will be disadvantaged kids who will be affected by that.”
“— deserves the praise of everybody in the House, and particularly that of the most vulnerable in society, for what he has done. Lest we forget, he also made a pay award to teachers. <BR /> <BR />Even before the pandemic, the education system was on the brink of financial crisis. Starved of investment for 10 years — Mervyn, you should know this because you were the Chair of the Education Committee — the system was dealing with a £400 million shortfall. In NDNA, the British Government committed to investing in our schools to ensure that they would have access to sustainable core budgets. Unfortunately, with the resources that they now provide, that will not happen.”
“I thank the Member for that intervention. I did not really want to remind them of that, but there you go. <BR /> <BR />Marcus got a gong for the good work that he did in embarrassing the Tory Government into stumping up for free school meals. I do not know whether "Sir Conor Murphy" has a good ring to it, but he certainly”
“I will give way one more time, but that is it.”
“This issue got a lot of publicity across the water when Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United footballer, embarrassed the Tories into ponying up for school meals for children during the holidays.”
“A final word on that: that had nothing to do with RHI. However, in any event, our education and children bore the brunt of Tory party policy. It appears that they are likely to go down the same route again. I am grateful that we have a Finance Minister who works on behalf of the most vulnerable in society. Significant sums have been allocated to the Department of Education. I note that Mr Storey pointed out that it is the responsibility of the Finance Minister to allocate the funding, and he has done that for the most vulnerable. I commend the Minister of Finance for his allocations, in particular, more than £10 million to support children with special educational needs and a further £30·6 million for holiday hunger.”
“I thank the Member for his intervention. I will just say to the Member, and I know that he is a believer in creationism, but, let us get away from ancient history. We are living in a new dispensation. There has been a peace process here for over 20 years. Come on; catch up. Get into the 20th century, never mind the 21st. Come on. Let us start working together for the people here.”
“Speaking of delivery, as the previous Member did, I recall the start of 2020 being very positive. We hoped that 'New Decade, New Approach' represented a new departure for British Government responsibility to the people here. There were numerous pledges in that agreement to invest in public services and a commitment to multi-year Budgets to allow Ministers to plan effectively for the future. Of course, we did not get delivery. Surprise, surprise: the British Government reneged on another deal. <BR /> <BR />The British Government's bad faith and the pandemic have combined to present us with a difficult financial situation. All of that came on top of a decade of relentless Tory austerity that has ravaged our public services.”
“I know that he raised the question of the budget as well. Given the size of my Department and the lack of time that we have had to bring it forward for public consultation, we have been unable to carry out a full equality impact assessment on all the detail. As the Chair of the Committee, the Member will be aware that that is being done at a high level. That is what my officials provided in their briefing last week.”
“Given all those issues, will the Minister tell us what steps he is taking to address the poor communication and complete lack of transparency that were highlighted by Deloitte in relation to last year's assessment fiasco?”
“Tá, tá mé ag teacht chuig an cheist anois. <BR /> <BR />Like the football manager who has lost the changing room, the Minister has lost the confidence of teachers, parents and children, and, according to the most recent opinion poll, there is also a lack of public confidence —.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a ráitis anseo ar maidin. I thank the Minister for his statement here this morning. I welcome the statement from the Minister, particularly the fact that he has abandoned the failed algorithm and is prepared to put more faith in the judgement — the professional judgement — of our teachers. However, the devil is in the detail, particularly with the assessment models and how moderation will take place. <BR /> <BR />It is fair to say that the Minister's tenure has been characterised by dithering and delay. Last year's failed assessment process and the transfer test fiasco are just a couple of —.”
“How would the Minister respond to a request from the Education Minister for some of the unallocated COVID funding to close the digital divide? The Minister will be aware that, recently, a light has been shone on the fact that some schoolchildren do not have access to adequate IT devices or Wi-Fi.”
“Will the junior Minister give way on that point?”
“<BR /> <BR />When the Chief Scientific Adviser was at the Committee a couple of weeks ago I asked him about that. How come they made such a mess of the modelling, and how did they get it so wrong? He said, "We did not get it wrong. We told the PHA to expect up to 1,300 cases a day". I do not know who is right and who is wrong. Whoever is sitting here can make up their own mind on that. It tells me that, in dealing with the pandemic, this whole operation has been absolutely shambolic. There is no other word to describe it. <BR /> <BR />We need a clear objective and a coordinated, integrated strategy, and somebody has to take responsibility. At the minute, the Health Minister is abdicating his responsibility. If the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Officer are going to give advice, let it be based on science.”
“The chief executive of the PHA came back in October and told us that it had 151 contact tracers, and when asked what that amounted to in full-time equivalents, she could not give us an answer. We later found out that it was actually 88. When we asked her why the numbers were so low in comparison with what she had been talking about in the spring, she said that the experts who did the modelling on the number of positive cases that we should expect got the modelling wrong. The experts told the PHA to expect a maximum of 300 cases a day, so it did not beef up its contact tracing as a result of the modelling that was given to it. Who was the modelling done by? According to the chief executive of the PHA, it was done by Professor Ian Young, the Chief Scientific Adviser.”
“That is going back to 23 April or 24 April — I am not sure which. The chief executive of the Public Health Agency told us, in the middle of April, that her organisation was "training" 500 people to carry out contact tracing. She came back three weeks later, and, when her words in the Hansard report were read back to her, she admitted that she had spoken out of turn. Those are the opportunities that were wasted. Nobody was being trained, and there was no beefing up of the contact-tracing operation.”
“They will not only have to tweak the vaccine; they will have to reboot their whole manufacturing process and so on and so forth. So, anybody who thinks that this is going to be resolved in a few weeks or a few months is living in cloud cuckoo land. <BR /> <BR />What do we need? We need a coherent, coordinated and integrated strategy to deal with the virus. We need to find the virus. We need to have proper contact tracing. We had an opportunity during the summer after the first lockdown, when numbers were very, very low, to build a proper contact-tracing operation. That opportunity was wasted. The Chief Medical Officer told the Committee that there were between 400 and 600 offers from people to train to do contact tracing. He said that there were people being trained in enhanced contact tracing.”
“Funny enough, going back to what I was saying earlier, I saw today that the Kent variant — the UK variant — accounts for 68% of all cases in the North. I wonder whether that has anything to do with people jumping on and off planes and coming in here. <BR /> <BR />It is certainly concerning that other variants are arising, and, if you listen to any of the scientists or public health people who have expertise in this field — the virologists, the epidemiologists and so on — you hear them say that the greater the community transmission rates, the greater the chance of mutation. The great fear in all this is that we will get a mutation that becomes resistant to the vaccine. Of course, many of the vaccine manufacturers say, "We can deal with that and tweak the vaccine", but that will take time.”
“There has been talk about zero COVID, and people say, "But, ah, you can't get to zero". People also say, "You cannot eradicate the virus", and that is absolutely true. We cannot eradicate this virus; it would be impossible. The virus will be with us for many years to come. The Chief Scientific Adviser said that, rather than being a pandemic, it will become endemic; it will always be there like the flu virus. We have to deal with that, and there are ways in which we can deal with it, and vaccination is, of course, one of the tools at our disposal. <BR /> <BR />Once the vaccinations arrived, people were thinking, "We're going to be out of the woods by Easter or maybe late spring or early summer". I doubt that anybody sitting in this Chamber now expects that. There will be problems with vaccinations, and we have seen new variants arising.”
“They have all done better because they have a small number of points of entry, which is where the virus can be controlled. Here you can come from London, jump off the plane and go about your business without any checks or restrictions: nothing. That is a problem. It does not matter how low we get community transmission, if we are still importing the virus, we are still going to have problems. I do not care whether it is London, Paris or Timbuktu; if we are going to import the virus, we will continually be in this situation where we impose lockdowns, get the transmission rates down, open up and see the thing go through the roof again, just as it has done this time.”
“The advice that was given to the Executive by the Minister, the Chief Scientific Adviser and the Chief Medical Officer was that that did not post a significant risk. That is arrant nonsense. I do not care who the scientist is; let them get up and explain how it is not a significant risk, because it is. <BR /> <BR />On the issue of the South, first of all, there is one advantage that many countries have. It is just by accident — a geographical accident — that some countries are islands, and many of those islands are the ones that have performed best in the whole pandemic. That is because they can control entry into their country. They are places like New Zealand, Australia — albeit it is a continental island — Taiwan, Iceland and so on.”