Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I apologise for having to leave. The justice committee is meeting now to consider the EU migration pact, so it is quite an important discussion. We have to kind of flip between the two rooms, so I do apologise.

There are a few things I wish to raise. Obviously, there is the stuff that is in the report but I am wondering about the survey process. I think there were more than 5,000 responses. The survey was evenly distributed in terms of the spread, but not everyone invited to respond does so. Was there a demographic breakdown of responses? Were demographics included in the survey to capture the race, class, disability and urban-rural responses?

I do not know whether the young people were asked to provide particular solutions to things. Were they asked what they see as the driving factors? In the context of racism, classism or anything like that, did anything come through regarding what the respondents believed drove certain thinking in young people? Was any correlation with regard to areas that have been under-resourced or underserved? What types of responses did respondents from such areas give regarding what was good or bad? Did poverty come up or how close somebody is to poverty? Obviously, poverty is not only financial now. I am sure that when Senator O'Sullivan talks about poverty, it is very different from the poverty in the 1990s that I would I talk about. It is cultural and social. It is about having access to the arts and literature.

It is about intergenerational unemployment or hardship. In people's responses, did any connection show in how different demographics types responded to particular issues or solutions? Does that make sense? I have one other question, which is on the teaching profession. What do people see as being the barriers to a more diverse population of teachers? Obviously the majority of teachers in Ireland are white, middle-class mostly rural women. It is almost an homogenous group, if we want to call them that. It is heavily white and there are often families of teachers where there have been several different generations of teachers within the family. Is there any insight as to why we have not yet seen that shift in greater representation among the teacher population?