Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I welcome Members of the Northern Ireland Youth Assembly to the Committee. Joining us remotely, we have Chloe McKenna and Dáire McConnell. With us in person are Cillián McGlinchey, Niamh Barnes and Imogen Neill. Unlike the previous session, when I launched into my questions, I will hand over to you, which is the proper procedure. Please feel free to brief the Committee on the Youth Assembly's response to the Irish-medium Education (Workforce Plan) Bill, after which Committee members will ask questions.

Ms Imogen Neill (Northern Ireland Youth Assembly): First, I thank the Committee for Education for meeting us today. On 19 June, we met to consider the Irish-medium Education (Workforce Plan) Bill. Today, we will present the key findings from that discussion. The full report has already been sent to the Committee and should be in members' packs.

It is an issue that the Youth Assembly was particularly keen to discuss, as a number of our Members have direct or indirect experience of Irish-medium education. Almost one in five Members who took part in the session attended or currently attends an Irish-medium school, while others had or have friends or family members in the sector. Although just over half of Members said that they had no personal experience of Irish-medium education, the mix of perspectives allowed for a balanced discussion, combining lived experience with wider observations from different communities. That helped ensure that the views that we are presenting today reflect the experiences of those directly involved in Irish-medium education and young people across Northern Ireland's broader understanding of it. Members were particularly interested in how the Bill proposes to plan for future workforce needs, including how different groups, including young people, will be involved in shaping those plans.

I will now hand over to Niamh, who will set out the Youth Assembly's understanding of key issues facing Irish-medium education.

Ms Niamh Barnes (Northern Ireland Youth Assembly): Good afternoon. I will begin by discussing the key issues facing Irish-medium education.

The issue most frequently raised by Youth Assembly Members was staffing shortages. Many highlighted a lack of teachers and wider school staff as being a priority across the sector. That was seen as being a significant challenge, affecting available subjects and the overall quality of education. Members raised concerns about the pressure that that placed on existing teachers, with some describing a situation of increased workload and strain owing to limited staffing.

Alongside staffing, Members identified a number of other major issues, such as funding, infrastructure and resources. They constantly highlighted a lack of funding as being a key challenge, impacting on teaching materials, school facilities and the suitability of provision. Some shared examples of schools struggling to meet Irish-medium provision owing to financial pressures. Members emphasised the need to view those challenges through a child's rights lens, such as the right to access quality education, including adequate resources and a suitable learning environment, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). They felt that the current pressure on Irish-medium education risked undermining those rights. Overall, Members described the sector as being under significant pressure, with staff shortages, insufficient funding and limited resources being the core challenges.

I will now hand over to Cillián, who will discuss whether Irish-medium education receives enough support and the Youth Assembly's views on the need for the legislation.

Mr Cillián McGlinchey (Northern Ireland Youth Assembly): Go raibh maith agat, Niamh. The next area that we will explore is the level of support for Irish-medium education and the need for the Bill.

Youth Assembly Members genuinely agreed that the Irish-medium education sector does not receive enough support. A total of 85% of Members agreed that the sector needs more support than it currently gets.

Members also expressed a lack of confidence that sufficient progress would be made without legislation. Some 72% said that they did not believe that the Department of Education would take enough action to improve the system without the implementation of a Bill such as this. That highlights a clear view that the legislation is needed in order to drive meaningful change and ensure accountability.

When asked whether the Bill would lead to real improvements, Youth Assembly Members were generally cautiously optimistic. The most common response was that it would improve things to an extent, suggesting some uncertainty about how significant those improvements would be. Members recognised that the Bill would play an important role in strengthening workforce planning and raising the profile of Irish-medium education. Some thought that it would legitimise the sector and its needs and would represent a meaningful step forward. Members also welcomed the fact that the Bill places a duty on the Department to prepare and publish a workforce plan for Irish-medium education. They saw that as an important step in creating a more structured and accountable approach to workforce planning. However, there was a consistent message that workforce planning alone will not be enough to address the deeper challenges facing the sector.

Members emphasised that funding remains the most critical issue, alongside ongoing pressures relating to staff and resources and school infrastructure. Overall, while 86% of Members believed that the Bill would have at least some positive impact, it was widely viewed as a partial solution. Members felt that it should be accompanied by practical action and sustained investment in order to deliver real and lasting improvements in Irish-medium education.

I will now hand over to Chloe, who is joining us online, to discuss funding and whether this should be a priority.

Ms Chloe McKenna (Northern Ireland Youth Assembly): Thank you, Cillián. Good afternoon, everyone. I am going to discuss fairness and whether the Bill goes far enough to address the challenges in Irish-medium education.

Youth Assembly Members considered the fairness of the Bill and debated whether it could be perceived as being unfair to other schools. Most Youth Assembly Members concluded that that was not a valid concern, viewing the Bill as a necessary response to long-standing underinvestment in Irish-medium education. Members emphasised that the aim is not to give Irish-medium schools an advantage but to ensure that young people being educated in the Irish-medium sector have the same opportunities as young people from English-medium schools.

The Youth Assembly also explored whether the Bill's focus on workforce planning and reporting is enough to address the many problems facing Irish-medium education, such as resources, capital investment in buildings, and funding pressures. Members highlighted the importance of ensuring that the Bill is supported by meaningful investment and implementation. Members also discussed the importance of consultation in developing the workforce plan. It is particularly important to us that young people are included in that process. We note that the Bill states that parents and pupils must be consulted in the preparation of the workforce plan, and we strongly welcome that. The Youth Assembly believes that it is essential that young people's voices are meaningfully included in decisions that affect their education. Members also felt that consultation must include those who are currently in Irish-medium education, including in preschools and Irish-medium units in English-medium settings, as well as young people in English-medium schools who may wish to access the sector in future.

I will now hand over to Dáire, who is also joining us remotely, to conclude on behalf of the Youth Assembly.

Mr Dáire McConnell (Northern Ireland Youth Assembly): Dia daoibh. Is mise Dáire agus tabharfaidh mé achoimre ar na tuairimí de chuid Thionól na nÓg ar an Bhille.

The Committee Clerk: Dáire is going to translate himself afterwards.

Mr McConnell: Youth Assembly Members expressed overwhelming support for the Irish-medium Education (Workforce Plan) Bill. When asked whether the Assembly should pass it, 94% said yes. Members clearly recognised the value and the challenges of Irish-medium education. They highlighted its role in supporting language, culture and identity, alongside the significant pressures currently facing the sector. However, while Members generally support the Bill, they also suggested that it could be seen as a starting point rather than a complete solution. There was an emphasis on the need for additional action, particularly in relation to funding, staffing and resources. In summary, the Youth Assembly supports the Bill's aims and sees the Bill as an important step towards addressing long-standing challenges in Irish-medium education. Thank you for listening. We welcome your questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, and apologies for the noise outside. I hope that everyone can still hear everything, particularly those joining online. As I said to your colleagues in the first session, it is not easy to come into a Committee room and present, especially for the first time, so we really appreciate your time and input and the time that you have clearly spent preparing for this. It really is appreciated by the Committee.

I have probably only one question. We will see where we go with it. One thing that came up in the Chamber at Second Stage and has been discussed in Committee — your report references it — is a suggestion that the Bill is in some way unfair to other school sectors. In other words, if you have a workforce plan for Irish-medium education, that is unfair to other sectors. Your report was really clear that your Members do not consider it to be unfair to other sectors. Will you tell us a bit more about why Members felt that?

Mr McGlinchey: I came from an Irish-medium primary school. We were in wee huts, basically. We were learning in huts that had damp and leaks while other schools had proper finished buildings and good playing fields. We used the local GAA field as our playing field during break. We borrowed the land from the GAA club to help the school, which shows how underfunded it was. If we could get rid of having to learn Irish in a hut and actually have a school, that would bring equality in learning between the English-medium and Irish-medium sectors.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is more about equality than prioritising one sector over another. It is about fairness and equality.

Mr McGlinchey: Yes.

Ms Barnes: Some 68% of Members think that this is not a fair argument. As Cillián said, it is not equal. Irish-medium schools and other schools are not equal. The amount of teachers and support for children with special needs or literacy and numeracy problems is not the same. We can see that 68% of people agree with that statement.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Dáire, I think that you indicated.

Mr McConnell: Yes. As a Member who has first-hand experience — I go to an Irish-medium school — I understand the staffing pressures. They are pretty catastrophic, as you will see if you read Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta's insight report from May 2025. That was published a year ago, and I know that the problems have got worse since then. There are problems with teachers. There are only two post-primary Irish-medium schools. The schools are too small. There used to be an open-door policy, but schools have had to start turning students away, because there simply is not enough space. The pressure is such that children cannot go and do what they believe in and enjoy in Irish, which is their right. It is their legal right to speak Irish in their life, and they are being held back from doing that because of the staffing pressures that those schools face. I see that day-to-day. To say that it is taking away from English-medium schools is really disrespectful, because it disrespects all the hard work that people have to do and the challenges that I and the rest of my community face day-to-day in learning Irish.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Dáire. To be clear, as I was clear at Second Stage, I fully support the Bill. I just wanted to give you all the opportunity to respond to some of the things that have come through as repeated themes. I share your view that there is an equality and fairness issue in relation to Irish-medium education. I note the passion with which you speak on the issue, Dáire. It is great to see the passion that you have for receiving your education in an Irish-medium setting.

Mr Sheehan: Tá fáilte romhaibh uilig. Gabhaim buíochas libh as teacht os comhair an Choiste inniu.

You are all very welcome. Thanks for coming to give evidence to the Committee. I will say, just because a few of you mentioned this, that my original intention was a much broader Bill that would have covered issues such as bespoke resources for Irish-medium education. We know that teachers in Irish-medium schools spend a lot of their time translating material from English into Irish. We also know that some Irish-medium schools are in a very bad state of repair, with some having been in mobile classrooms for over 30 years and some closer to 40 years. I would like to have included all that in a broad-ranging Irish-medium education Bill, but the Speaker determined that all Members' Bills had to be narrowly focused. For that reason, I decided that we would focus on workforce.

Workforce is not just about teachers in post-primary schools, although we know that there are shortages there, particularly of teachers of specialist subjects, especially STEM subjects. In the North, it is almost impossible to do a degree course that includes a STEM subject and Irish. Things like that need to change. There is also an issue when it comes to providing support for children with special needs. We see speech and language therapists (SLTs) coming to an Irish-medium school to give therapy in English to a child whose first language may be Irish. There is a similar issue with educational psychologists and so on. In preschools, there is a shortage of professionally trained teachers who can teach children at the earliest stages of their school careers. "Workforce" is quite a broad term.

I was surprised by some of the results of your survey, particularly the response to the question:

Only 6% of the respondents said yes. That is amazing insofar as, I presume, the Youth Assembly is made up of young people from right across the community rather than from just one community. It suggests that even people who have no involvement in Irish-medium education recognise the difficulties that the sector faces. The best remedy for that is the introduction of legislation such as this Bill. Would any of you like to comment on that?

Mr McGlinchey: There comes to an extent of sitting talking about bringing change for the language. It was in 2016 that I started paying attention to the #AchtAnois campaign, which is about cearta daonna, cearta teanga

. It has been 10 years now, and I have not seen a lot being done about it. There is still that lack of staff. I remember that, when I was in primary school, there were classroom assistants at the school who could not speak a word of Irish — in a Gaelscoil. There is a time for talking, but direct action needs to follow the talking, and there has been a long time for talking. I am sorry if I went off on a rant.

Mr Sheehan: Go raibh maith agat as sin.

Dáire wanted to come in.

Mr McConnell: Yes, just to agree with Cillián. There is a feeling — it may not be an attitude directly shared by the Department of Education; I am sure that the staff there are agreed on doing their jobs — or a certain attitude in the Irish community that Irish-medium education is not viewed as being on the same level as English-medium education or integrated education. A Bill like this will help quell the worry that, if there is no legal requirement to fund Irish-medium education, the funding will stop. I have no doubt that the Department of Education is fully for Irish-medium education. However, it would quell some of those fears that some of the community have.

Mr Sheehan: OK. Go raibh maith agat as sin.

I have one other question that is probably a good one for you, Dáire, given that you attend a post-primary Irish school. I presume that it is Coláiste Feirste. Are any of you aware of any young people who had to leave an Irish-medium school and go to an English-medium school because a particular subject was not available?

Ms Barnes: Yes. I can speak from first-hand experience. I went to an Irish-medium nursery and continued to P1, P2 and P3, but due to a lack of teachers and a lack of funding, I was forced to leave it, which resulted in my losing all of my Irish. I am doing Irish GSCE now, and only now am I regaining my Irish; I recently earned my Silver Fáinne. For all of those years, I loved being in an Irish-medium school, and I feel that that was almost taken away from me because of a lack of funding and the under —. I just do not feel that the rights are the same as for English-speaking.

Mr McConnell: To add to that, from my year group of maybe 150 to 190 people, about 120 are doing A levels. Of that 120, about 70 or 80 are leaving the school, simply because it does not offer the subjects that they want. People want to do certain subjects for their A levels, and if they are not offered, they have to move. I have been in that situation. I wanted to do a particular subject, and there was a teacher with a specialisation in it, but they could not teach it because the basic subject that they taught did not have enough teachers. That is the problem: there are not enough teachers to teach specialist subjects.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We have to draw a line under that one in the interests of time. Thank you all for your time and your evidence. We have had two great evidence sessions today. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you again for giving up your time and coming today. Thank you very much.