Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I welcome someone else who is familiar to members: Pat Sheehan MLA, who is the Bill sponsor. I also welcome Patrick Gaffney, who is a policy adviser from Sinn Féin. As with the previous session, it is over to you for any opening remarks, after which we will move into questions and answers from members.

Mr Pat Sheehan (Northern Ireland Assembly): Go raibh maith agat

, Chair. Irish-medium education (IME) has been expanding rapidly over the past number of years; in fact, it is the fastest-growing sector in our education system. There are elements of our education system that have not kept up with the growth of Irish-medium education, one of which is recruitment and retention. A lot of people think that this is about just teachers, but it is also about early years and support for children with additional needs. All of those issues are important and need to be dealt with in the legislation.

I am sorry to be slightly repetitive on some of the stuff that was said yesterday. I will try to keep this as brief as possible. We wrote to the Minister to explain what we were going to do, as we were advised to do by the Speaker. The Minister wrote back to say that he was in the process of developing a strategy that, he hoped, would be ready in mid-2027. The Minister might not be in a job after the next election, so he is not in a position to say whether or not he could deal with the strategy. Unfortunately, one of the problems in the sector is that there is no trust in the DUP's having control over the strategy. Unfortunately, there is hostility towards the Irish language among a number of parties in the Assembly. The accusation has been made that Sinn Féin has been weaponising the Irish language: if that is what people want to believe, that is fair enough. If it is what they believe, they should attack Sinn Féin; they should not take it out on children trying to get an education through the medium of Irish.

If we look closely at the difficulties and challenges that exist in Irish-medium education, we see that they do not exist in other sectors. I am on record as saying in Committee and in the Chamber that I will support initiatives to improve educational outcomes in any sector for any children. I do not care where they come from. My passion in education is to ensure that every child gets an opportunity to have a good education. It is an escape route from poverty, among other things, and I will support any initiative brought forward by any Minister to do that. There is clearly a difficulty in Irish-medium education, hence the reason for bringing this forward.

There are other issues, but, again, as Danny pointed out, the Speaker made a ruling that all private Members' Bills must be narrowly focused. Therefore we decided that we would focus on a workforce strategy. That is what we have done.

I will leave it there, Chair.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Pat. I do not have a lot of questions. It is a short Bill, and its intent and impact are fairly clear.

I will pick up on one issue that came through in almost every contribution in the Second Stage debate: the particular impact of workforce challenges around SEN provision in Irish-medium and the extra layer of challenge in accessing educational psychology assessments, speech and language therapy and even classroom assistants who have the necessary fluency in Irish to support a child. When looking at what needed to be included in a workforce plan, did you give any consideration to directly referencing the SEN workforce to ensure that it is addressed?

Mr Sheehan: Not explicitly, but it is referenced in the overall context of the Bill. Clause 1(5)(d) includes:

It is not just about teachers; it is intended to take in the broad swathe of all workers in the Irish-medium sector. As I pointed out yesterday, children who go to English-medium schools have educational assessment and follow-up; SEN-related training and advice are provided by the Education Authority; and there are local impact team interventions and access to specialist provision support services. Irish-medium education is a distinct education system in terms of the language of instruction. Many children have Irish as their first language. If they require additional support of some sort and it is not available in Irish, those children are immediately at a disadvantage. That is why it is so important that we cover every aspect of the workforce in the Irish-medium sector.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I appreciate that.

Mr Patrick Gaffney (Sinn Féin): As Pat said, the scope had to be narrow. Initially, we wanted to draft a more comprehensive Bill to deal with some of the issues that you have touched on regarding SEN. When the scope was reduced and restricted, we had to try to be clever with the SEN aspects. We are trying to deal with it via that workforce. Clause 1(5)(d) is trying to be all-encompassing: we are trying to do it there. It will be clear. The Bill sets out the parameters for consultation and what a plan should look like, so you would like to think that, when the Bill is enacted, those SEN issues and, in particular, the personnel behind them will be addressed.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I appreciate that, and I know the paragraph that references the different functions of persons within the workforce. It is just that SEN and the fact that there might be a need to make it more explicit in the Bill came through so clearly to me. It is something for the Committee to consider, particularly as some of those professionals may be in the health sector and there could be an argument from the Department that it is not its area of responsibility and, therefore, end up being missed in the plan. It is something that I would not mind exploring as we go through the process.

I have no further questions at this stage. I will take indications from members.

Ms Hunter: Pat, thank you for being here and also Patrick again. I have two questions. We had the debate during the week, so I have a firm understanding. When I became an MLA I was shocked at the state of some of our Irish-medium schools. Having spoken directly to our school leaders, particularly at Gaelcholáiste Dhoire, I know the work, effort and time that they put in, but the lack of a sense of stability and security is shocking. I welcome the fact that you are bringing the Bill forward, Pat. I know that you are an expert in the field.

I have two questions. You stated that your Bill will place a statutory duty on the Department of Education to develop, publish and maintain a workforce plan and to publish that every five years. Without that legal requirement, there is no guarantee of continuity or accountability, particularly when Ministers change. That is so important. Pat, can you expand on that? If your Bill does not pass, what do you think Irish-medium education will look like over the next five to 10 years?

Mr Sheehan: That is the difficulty, because the sector is already bursting at the seams. I gave the example yesterday of Coláiste Feirste, which underwent a major redevelopment about 10 years ago. That was for 550 pupils, and there are now over 1,000 pupils in that school. The Department has not managed to procure a site for a second school, preferably in north Belfast. That creates problems in Coláiste Feirste, because you have a school for 550 pupils but there are 1,000 pupils. That will lead to wear and tear in the school and will impact on access to toilets and other facilities. In a sense, that is a microcosm of what is happening in the sector overall.

The issues need to be dealt with. As I said, the Bill has a narrow scope, and there were other issues that we would like to have dealt with. When Professor Noel Purdy did his research, he pointed out that, on average, teachers in Irish-medium schools are working 47 hours a week, and a lot of that is down to translating resources that are not provided to Irish-medium schools but should be. Teachers are having to translate them themselves. There is an issue about resources and materials that we would have liked to incorporate into the Bill, but we made the decision that, if we made the Bill's scope too wide, the Speaker would not allow it through.

There are also issues around capital investment. We talked about the statutory duty on the Minister to encourage and facilitate Irish-medium education, and one of the good things about that is that it gives a Minister flexibility. One of the things that really annoyed me in a previous mandate was that Gaelcholáiste Dhoire had applied to be on the capital builds list and the Minister at that time refused to allow that because the school had not met the threshold. There were a number of criteria to get on to that capital builds list. At the time, although the school had not met the enrolment threshold, it was able to show the projected increase in enrolment over the following five to 10 years. It was easily going to meet that threshold. There has been an exponential rise in the number of students in Gaelcholáiste Dhoire. The Minister, by virtue of the fact that she had a statutory duty to encourage and facilitate, could have used that as a reason to put Gaelcholáiste Dhoire on that list, but she did not. The statutory obligation is there for a reason: to help bring the Irish-medium sector onto an equal footing with other sectors. That is the difficulty. One of the reasons for our feeling the need to bring the legislation is that we just do not expect certain Ministers to deal with the Irish-medium sector in a fair way, and that will do damage to the sector in the long run.

Mr Gaffney: You asked what happens if the Bill does not pass and the workforce issues are not addressed. At the minute, naíscoileanna

are bursting at the seams, as are primaries, so there is that conveyor belt going into post-primary settings. However, you will not have the subject specialist teachers and the capacity to support the numbers of pupils coming from primary school, so there will be children who will not be able to continue their educational journey through the medium of Irish. That is how fundamental it is.

Ms Hunter: Buildings are a real issue. I recall an Irish-medium school in Fermanagh being promised a new building but not getting it. Many schools across the North are still in mobile classrooms; prefabs that have not been updated for decades. That is why I was disappointed by the comments of the TUV representative yesterday. The Bill is not about prioritising Irish-medium education. It is, essentially, about equity: raising Irish-medium education up to give it the rights, fairness and investment that it so rightfully deserves.

This is my last question, as I am mindful of time. I am reading a book called 'The Broken Harp', which refers to the state's role in promoting the Irish language. What is your long-term vision for Irish-medium education? What are your thoughts on where we can go from here with stabilising and expanding it?

Mr Sheehan: My view is that the Irish-medium sector will continue to expand, because more and more people want their children to be educated bilingually. There are all sorts of cognitive developmental reasons why children should be educated bilingually. There are all sorts of advantages. Parents should have a choice to send their children to Irish-medium schools or, if they want, to integrated, controlled or maintained schools. The overall system should be based on equity such that, if parents want to send their children to an Irish-medium school, those children will have access to the same facilities and opportunities as in any other sector. We are not looking to give the Irish-medium sector any sort of advantage over other sectors. We are not interested in doing that.

Ms Hunter: That is brilliant. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We will have to draw a line under that now. Michelle is next. I understand that it is easy to quickly broaden things out, but try to keep questions as focused on the Bill as possible, because time is against us.

Mrs Guy: I have only one question, and it is very focused on the Bill. Thank you both for your evidence.

The Committee has scrutinised legislation previously, and we have talked a lot about "mays" and "musts", the difference between those words and the weight behind them. Clause 1(5) of the Bill states:

Are you happy that the language "take into account" is strong enough to make sure that what is detailed in the subsequent points will be included in the workforce plan? It is technical language, so I am trying to make sure of that.

Mr Gaffney: We left that to the drafter, who reassured us that it is sufficient, because it lays out what should be taken into account and outlines the consultees that should be engaged with. Therefore, we would like to think that that is —.

Mrs Guy: Based on that advice and everything that you have looked at, do you feel confident that the Bill will deliver what you want it to deliver?

Mr Gaffney: We were reassured of that. We were quite pedantic in our back-and-forth with the drafter, so we are happy enough.

Mrs Guy: OK. That is literally all that I wanted to ask.

Mr Sheehan: With legislation such as this, it is not always possible to be totally prescriptive about the outcomes that you want. In fact, it is probably never possible. We have not been prescriptive about the measures that we want, although there are issues around bursaries and other incentives, because we believe that, if this becomes law, that will come out when stakeholders are consulted. The Department will then be informed about what exactly is needed for Irish-medium education.

Mrs Guy: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thanks, Michelle. I will pick up on that, briefly. The subsection that Michelle referred to includes the phrase "must take into account". Could there be an argument for having a stronger form of words, along the lines of "must seek to meet the current and future expected demands on the workforce", before stating that the Department "must take into account" what is outlined in the subsequent paragraphs (b) to (e)? It has been on my mind to ask how we can be sure that, once the plan is developed, it will be acted on. Is there anything that we can do to strengthen it? We know the history of Irish-medium education and other issues in the education sector. When budgets are tight, if a plan can be written without doing anything with it, that is what the Department will seek to do. I will put that out there for reflection: is there any way of strengthening it?

Mr Sheehan: It is certainly something that is worth consideration, and we are happy to look at any proposed amendments that come forward.

Mr Martin: Thanks, Pat and Patrick, for coming to the Committee. During the discussions that we have had, Pat, you have used the phrases "equal footing" and "equity". Obviously, those are important to you, and they are important to me. In the first instance, will you accept that the IME sector already has additional legislative benefits due to the 1998 Order and the duty on the Department to facilitate and encourage Irish-medium education in Northern Ireland?

Mr Sheehan: The integrated sector had the same statutory obligation, and, in fact, that was strengthened in the Integrated Education Act a couple of years ago. That is necessary in order to bring the Irish-medium sector up onto an equal footing with other sectors. For example, one of the issues on which we did not get into any detail yesterday but that was mentioned in broad-brush strokes was the need to recruit teachers in specialist subjects, particularly STEM subjects. Everybody acknowledges that there is also such a shortage in other sectors; there is no doubt about that. However, what people do not realise — this is what a Minister of Education needs to look at — is that it is almost impossible to do a degree in Irish along with a STEM subject here in the North, because most degrees with Irish include stuff from humanities but none of the STEM subjects. That is an issue that has to be addressed. It is not a matter of saying, "We need more Irish teachers who can teach STEM subjects". There needs to be fundamental change in the system that produces STEM teachers and STEM teachers with Irish. When there is a duty on a Minister to encourage and facilitate, that is an area where they could be using that statutory obligation and looking at structural difficulties in the system that need to be sorted out.

Mr Martin: That is an interesting point, Pat. Is that example that you gave me at initial teacher training college or is that at Queen's?

Mr Sheehan: Let me find the note that I have on that. There is no stand-alone Irish-medium PGCE for post-primary education in the North of Ireland. Instead, prospective teachers must apply for a mainstream, subject-specific PGCE at either Queen's or Ulster University (UU) or separately express an interest in undertaking an Irish-medium enhancement immersion education certificate at St Mary's.

Mr Martin: I think that I have heard that. You can tell where my next question will go to. That is not something for the Education Department. Both of the institutions that you mentioned fall within the remit of the Department for the Economy. I am going at supply and demand. My wider point, Pat, is that, if there is demand in those areas, naturally, supply should meet that, but, surely, that is a question for Economy to answer.

Mr Sheehan: It is the Education Minister who sets the numbers. It is Economy that provides the funding. Again, that is a matter for collaboration between Ministers.

Mr Gaffney: May I come in?

Mr Martin: Go ahead, Patrick.

Mr Gaffney: This is just to look at the contrast. Last year, there was an announcement of some bursaries for here, and I will contrast that with what is happening in other places. Our Bill aims to give practical effect to the existing statutory duty. In Wales, targeted support for Welsh-medium teaching includes a £5,000 training grant and a further £5,000 retention payment, and that is backed by legislation requiring the expansion of Welsh-medium education.

In Scotland, there are bursaries of between £15,000 and £20,000, which explicitly support Gaelic-medium teaching across the primary and post-primary sectors, and there are additional training grants. That is also within a statutory framework to promote the language.

In both jurisdictions, funding is ring-fenced, immersion-specific and aligned to legal duties to grow the language-medium sector. In the North, by contrast, Irish-medium education must compete within a capped pool of around 130 general bursaries. There is no stand-alone, strategic approach. There are no retention incentives, and there is no equivalent legislative driver as exists in those jurisdictions.

Mr Martin: That is fine. The only other thing that I was —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Be very brief, Peter.

Mr Martin: OK. I am sure that you accept that we want to target funding and support to those who most need it, and, clearly, you have decided with the Bill that IME needs it. If you contrast some of the results from the controlled or maintained post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, you see that a lot of them are performing less successfully than Irish-medium schools. In fact, Irish-medium schools are outstripping them. Part of the reason for that is to do with the effect of bilingualism, which you mentioned earlier, Pat.

I put it to you that the controlled and maintained sector needs more support than the Irish-medium sector, if we go by results, and I can give you all the stats that you need. To a degree, it is praise for the IME sector that it is outstripping a lot of non-selective maintained and controlled schools. If we are serious about equity and about trying to support schools that are most in need, and we look at the results, we see that there are schools in the controlled and maintained sector that need support more in respect of some legislative duties.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We need a really brief response. We are getting into the wider principles rather than the detail of the Bill.

Mr Sheehan: We are moving way off the Bill, but I have said before — I will say it again — that I am happy to support any initiative in any sector in any school that will help to raise outcomes. A lot of it, in my view, does not require significant funding. For example, the RAISE money from the Shared Island Fund was a wasted opportunity. We could have reinstated the Engage programme, which proved to be successful in the aftermath of COVID. We could have recruited new, young teachers to do literacy and numeracy to help kids who are falling behind. I said to you to read Lucy Crehan's book. It is excellent, and she raises some important issues. You can speak for your party, but the whole issue of academic selection affects what is happening in our education system. I will not get into that debate, Chair. I see that you are getting restless. [Laughter.]

Mr Martin: Well done for stopping him there, Chair.

Mr Gaffney: This will —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Patrick, I am going to draw a line there, as we are way off the scope of the Bill. I have given a fair bit of latitude. David, you are next.

Mr Brooks: I am bemused by the fact that Lucy Crehan continues to be the patron saint of education as does Michael Gove, depending on who is talking.

I will follow on from Peter's point. What work has Economy done to establish the need and the support for Irish with STEM subjects at university level if the dearth of teachers is a key part of the issue?

Mr Gaffney: Before Pat comes in, I will say that the Education side has not provided Economy with an assessment or shopping list of what it needs essentially to fulfil the posts in the schools. Realistically, Economy cannot really do much at this stage without that evidence.

Mr Brooks: We are probably getting off the scope of the Bill when talking about this issue, but the question of the need for Irish-speaking STEM graduates will apply not just to Education. Will it be economically viable for people to get degrees and move into those areas, because, eventually, there might not be teaching posts for everybody? Has any work been done to establish that? I understand that you are not on the Economy Committee, Pat, but what is the Sinn Féin point of view?

Mr Sheehan: I am not, and I would prefer to direct my attention to education, because, ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Education Minister to make a decision on how many teacher training places are needed. He cannot do that without knowing, from within the sector, what exactly is needed. The sector has been crying out for quite a while now about the shortage of teachers in not just specialist subjects but all aspects.

Mr Brooks: You would agree that the STEM issue is a challenge across the board; it is not a unique situation for the Irish-medium sector. It is largely to do with the wages for jobs outside education that people can get with those degrees that the public sector cannot compete with.

Mr Sheehan: I absolutely accept that, but what you need to accept, David, is that, as hard as it is to get teachers to teach STEM subjects, it is even more difficult to get someone who speaks Irish fluently and can deliver a STEM subject in school. People could go in and maybe teach history, maths, English or whatever, but the STEM subjects use fairly technical language, so there is a greater need for more precision in the language that is being used. A lot of people will describe themselves as being fluent in Irish, but that does not necessarily mean that they can go and teach a STEM subject.

Mr Brooks: Yes, you could not teach law in Irish. I understand that.

Mr Sheehan: As difficult as it is to get STEM teachers for English-medium schools, it is much more difficult to get someone who can speak Irish and deliver a STEM subject.

Mr Brooks: I understand that principle, but the difference is that we already have a statutory duty. From looking at the Bill, my concern is about how often we look at issues that are happening across the board in education but hive off one part and say, "This is exceptional". There are definitely caveats and things that we can look at that maybe need to be given special attention, but this further elevates one sector. It was the same with the integrated sector. You will be familiar with our views on the Integrated Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. Again, it took one sector and tried to raise it above all others, and that is my concern.

You talked about the incentives in Wales. Is there any forecast of what such incentives would cost here? I am not averse, at times, to golden handcuffs schemes and so on, but where is the sunset clause? If there is a bursary and a retention element to it, how long would people have to stay in the system? I am not saying that we should have a bursary just for Irish language teachers, but what does that look like in the Welsh system?

Mr Gaffney: In our Bill, we do not prescribe any such actions or interventions. We want the consultation to draw that out.

Mr Brooks: Fair enough.

Mr Gaffney: So we cannot provide any costs or anything like that at this stage.

Mr Brooks: It would be exceptional, so I have an issue with that, but it is worth investigating.

Mr Sheehan: Clearly, the Minister already has in his mind the possibility of bursaries, incentives and so on in a general sense, so it is obviously the Department's view that, if we want STEM teachers, we need to do something to try to recruit them.

Mr Brooks: As a right of reply, because I think that there was a slight on the DUP, I understand that the Irish language — we discussed this — can be a controversial issue at times, and the way in which we perceive it to be used and your view on that will be different, but that has to be separated from the Minister's handling of Irish-medium education. We had in the Chamber, and we had today, Pat, a bit of a blow at the Minister about how there is a lack of trust. However, Cara and her colleagues stood in the Chamber and said that, when they went to ask him for things for a particular school, he did them. He has given development proposals for Irish-medium nurseries. He has announced new builds for Irish-medium education.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I understand the point, but, in the interests of time, we need to move on.

Mr Brooks: We have to give balance by pointing out that he is not a Minister who has a track record of rallying against Irish-medium education; rather, he has a track record of supporting it. I understand Cara's concern about temporary classrooms and the crumbling estate, but every one of us can go into schools in every sector across Northern Ireland where the situation is exactly the same with crumbling walls and facilities being needed. The Education budget is underfunded to the tune of £600 million. How are we going to fix that?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are having a good rehearsal of the Second Stage debate. [Laughter.]

Pat, a very brief final response.

Mr Sheehan: I have never said that the Minister has done nothing. I said yesterday that I do not mention the issue of trust to score points. I am stating it as a fact that the trust is not there. I used the example yesterday of the Líofa bursaries as to why there is not trust.

Mr Brooks: I understand that there is tension on both sides in how we perceive each other on this issue, but it is right to provide context and balance with regard to what the Minister has done for Irish-medium schools.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You had a good opportunity to air that, as did the Bill sponsor.

I see no other members indicating, so I think that that brings the evidence session to an end.

Mr Sheehan: May I mention just one other thing, Chair? The Minister spoke yesterday about appointing a person in Irish-medium schools for AI. That raises more concerns with me than anything else. That is about having Google Translate or something like that instead of teachers having to sit down and translate stuff. We have seen some of the dogs' dinners that have come out of Google Translate and AI and so on, so that issue does not fill me with confidence, either, I have to say.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you.

I invite the Deputy Chair to resume his seat here while we finish up our discussions on any actions arising from that. Thank you, Patrick, for your evidence today in both sessions.