Norma Foley was one of the most surprising of Micheal Martin's Cabinet appointments last month. The new Minister for Education is a first-time TD with no previous national legislative or policy-making experience.
olleagues said the fact she had spent more than two decades as a councillor in Kerry and her background as a secondary school teacher in Tralee marked her out as one to watch. "Articulate and astute," said one Cabinet minister, while a senior Fianna Fail source said: "She is a very, very capable woman. She has been in politics a long time and gets it."
Foley was to the fore of highlighting issues at the Skellig Star direct provision centre in Cahersiveen earlier this year. But her appointment to one of the most important roles in government is a massive and perhaps risky move by Martin.
As stressed parents and anxious children seek clarity on how schools will reopen in September, Foley has not been able to provide it. Outstanding questions remain over the extent to which schools will reopen and what extra supports will be in place.
The new minister has secured a doubling of the minor works grant budget - from €30m to €60m - and it will be extended to secondary as well as primary schools. The funding, to be announced as part of the July Stimulus package, will allow schools to adapt their buildings, upgrade their toilets and get ready for social distancing regulations.
"We are certainly going to ensure that everything that needs to be done, the multi supports that need to be in place, will be in place," Foley said.
"The objective is to ensure that the schools open as fully as possible and that students, and the entire school community are working within school confines."
But in her new office in the Department last Friday, the Sunday Independent found the minister either reluctant or unwilling to answer clearly many other questions about her new brief.
Hugh O'Connell: The programme for government commits to reducing the reliance on voluntary contributions. What would be an appropriate contribution?
Norma Foley: I think we're looking at a whole new world order as we journey through Covid and all of that, so I think we must be very, very mindful. So again that's something that we're working our way towards.
HOC: What are you working your way towards?
NF: I recognise that there's going to be difficulties for parents in terms of costs and everything else. So we are looking at, in terms of the schools and what the schools can roll out themselves on their own initiative, and supporting that. I think that's hugely important as opposed to reliance on parents.
HOC: Do you think parents shouldn't be paying it?
NF: Well, there's the ideal and there's the reality. So I think we're looking at both there and I am conscious that parents are under undue pressure currently because of the situation which we find ourselves in. We are solution-based, we're solution-focused here. I can't put an exact figure on it for you, it wouldn't be wise for me to do that, but I am saying that I'm very conscious and very aware of it.
HOC: What was the voluntary contribution in the school you used to work in?
NF: Actually I couldn't put a figure on that, I wasn't involved in that area.
HOC: Is the intention to try and get rid of the voluntary contribution?
NF: I think parents and guardians have considerable demands on them. Education in its purest and best sense should be accessible, and I'm a huge supporter of inclusion in education programmes like Deis and rolling those out to ensure that every child has every possible opportunity and it has nothing to do with the financial background from which they would come.
HOC: So is the intention to get rid of the voluntary contribution or reduce it?
NF: Well, it would be my intention that there wouldn't be a reliance on the voluntary contribution and can I say, I would be aware of the fact of the voluntary contribution in my experience has never impeded the learning of a child in school... It's never been an obstacle to the experience of the best possible education. I would like to think that would be a cornerstone.
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Foley is evasive on plans to roll out a free school book pilot scheme to 50 schools in September, declining to confirm if this will even happen or what schools it will apply to. "I am looking at it," she says.
On the commitment to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio - currently around 26:1 in Ireland - there is no answer on what ratio she wants to achieve, other than saying she aspires to the EU average of 20:1.
"I mean for me to put a figure on it now means that it's set in stone... and I don't think that's appropriate at this point," she says.
HOC: Some people listening to these answers might deduce that you don't really have targets in mind for a lot of these things and be concerned that they can't be achieved.
NF: No, not at all. I think it's very clear that in my department there would be a recognition, and certainly it would be my recognition, that we engage with the stakeholders of education, we consult, and we come to a joint approach as to what you have mentioned there, the pupil-teacher ratio, what we're working towards. HOC: People might like to know what the ambition is.
NF: Well, the ambition is to reduce the current pupil-teacher ratio.
HOC: To what?
NF: What I'm saying to you is I think there will be further discussion with the key range of stakeholders in relation to that and I think that's hugely important. I think there hasn't been a recognition of the role that could be played by the collective in education and I would like to think that is the way we would go forward, that the collective in education would have a very strong role.
HOC: What's the collective in education?
NF: The collective in education, as far as I'm concerned, are the wide range of stakeholders I've mentioned. I believe we can achieve a huge amount when we have a common agenda, or an appreciation of what is and should be the common agenda. For example, the common objective that we have to reopen schools. I think that buy-in from all concerned lends great weight to what we are ultimately seeking to achieve.
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The new Government has committed to developing an inclusive and age-appropriate relationships and sexual education curriculum with possible legislative changes. Foley would again not be drawn on what this might involve. She said there should be a role for schools in sex education "in the broadest sense" but that it has to be in consultation with parents and stakeholders.
"I would recognise that parents are the primary educators and they must very much so be part of this. Students, teachers, the widest consensus," she said.
HOC: Do you think that parents should be teaching children about sex and sexual relationships?
NF: I think there's a role for that. There's also a role supporting the schools as well.
HOC: What's the appropriate age for children to be learning about that in schools?
NF: It depends on the kind of information that you're going to make available, it should be age appropriate. What's appropriate at one particular level is not appropriate at another. You must be very conscious of age appropriate.
HOC: What's the appropriate age for children to be learning about sex and sexual identity in schools?
NF: Well, it depends on the information that's being made available.
HOC: Learning about the basic facts of life.
NF: Well, age appropriate.
HOC: What's age appropriate?
NF: What's age appropriate would be taking on board what a child of a particular age can make their way through or what they can actually assimilate at a given time. It must be age-friendly in terms of, I suppose, terminology. There must be an age of appreciation of how much information a child can assimilate, so it depends.
HOC: What's the appropriate age for children to be learning about sex at school?
NF: It's very difficult to put an exact ... it depends on the information - it's not just about sex, it's about well-being, it's about health, it's about all of that.
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Foley stresses it is not just about sex education in schools. "It's about health and well-being and fitness and mental well-being, which is very important, and resilience," she says.
On the approach to education about the dangers of drug use, Foley is also strikingly vague.
"I think children need to be taught about the danger, and they need to be taught about, and again in the widest sense, health and well-being and how best to look after themselves, how best to present themselves in the community and care for themselves and care for each other," she says.
Asked if it should be a policy of ''just say no'', she responded: "Absolutely in terms of... absolutely. I mean drugs are not available to under 18s, and absolutely... and obviously there's a difference between medical drugs obviously, and yes, absolutely, yeah."
Having been a member of Tralee Pastoral Council, Foley says her religious faith is important to her, but stressed "in no shape or form does it mean that I impose my faith or my beliefs on anyone else".
She is "absolutely" committed to expanding plurality in education and achieving a target of at least 400 multi-denominational primary schools by 2030.
Outside of her portfolio, Foley said she believes in the rights of the unborn and does not rule out arguing to restrict access to abortion when the Termination of Pregnancy Act is reviewed next year.
"I will look at where we are then, at that time," she says.
She adds: "I value the life of the unborn. I accept that there are, you know, individual cases and individual issues for different people at different times and people make their own decisions and that's democracy."
She also expressed some reservations about any plans to make it easier for children under 16 to change their gender. "I think that's something that I would have to consider further," she says.
Having provided little clarity on a range of issues, the interview is halted after less than 25 minutes with Foley apologising.
"It just seems that there is so much happening these days. It is fairly flat out busy."
