Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
It is a great pleasure to be here with you today at your AGM and of course to welcome you to County Laois - the heart of the country. I hope you enjoy your short stay here and come back for another visit.
I would like to thank your CEO, Inez Bailey, for extending an invitation to me to open your conference today and I am looking forward to sharing some thoughts with you about how I believe we are all working together to further your vision – a vision of a society where everyone can develop their literacy, numeracy and digital skills, and where all individuals can take part fully in society, as a consequence of having those skills.
Can most of us even imagine not having them? Society is so complex, the mere idea of trying to navigate everyday life without the ability to read and write at an adequate level is terrifying – but many people do have to do so. I must say I have huge admiration for those who find themselves in such situations, and for the resilience and creativity they show as they devise strategies to help them get by in a world based so much on words and numbers.
Indeed as a public representative, I have seen those strategies in action … it took me quite some time to realise that some of the people I was helping with forms and the like in my constituency office, had not necessarily ‘forgotten the glasses’ or whatever… they were in fact skilfully managing a situation which was really difficult for them.
And the number of people with such difficulties is actually considerable. An OECD survey found that one in six Irish adults have difficulty understanding basic written text and one in four find it difficult to do simple maths. Meanwhile over 40% scored badly on using technology to solve problems and accomplish tasks. These figures are challenging and they put us firmly in the bottom half of the 24 countries participating in the study.
But for nearly 40 years now, your organisation has been at the forefront of the fight to rewrite those figures. Since it was established by volunteers in 1980, an example, by the way, of the rich tradition of volunteering in Ireland, it has been the leading campaigner and lobbying force on adult literacy issues. I know that during that time you have been involved with tutor training, developing teaching materials, distance education services, policy making, research and campaigns to raise awareness about adult literacy difficulties in Ireland. And you are reaching big numbers – I believe that as of now there are well over 50,000 adults attending your adult literacy courses nationwide with 1,500 paid tutors and over 2,400 volunteers, all involved in delivering these services.
Some of those services of course, are being delivered here in my home area.
I’d like to pay tribute to the Laois/Offaly Education and Training Board for their involvement in today’s event and also for the extensive range of Adult Literacy Services they provide. I know they offer free group and one-to-one tuition for basic literacy, numeracy and computer skills. They also offer Driver Theory Classes, English classes for speakers of other languages, workplace learning courses and Family learning courses in a range of areas across both counties. Furthermore, in September, I know a new major Award in Science and Engineering skills is being introduced in Portlaoise to facilitate learners who opt for practically focused modules.
And of course practically focused modules are not just really valuable – they also provide a vehicle for creative thinking… I was particularly taken by a programme called ‘Maths through Darts’ – a terrific initiative developed to take the fear out of learning maths. It sounds like great fun and it has to be better than learning tables by rote. Mind you, we might just keep it to the adult learners… I’m not too sure a DART board in every class room would be a good idea!
But it’s not just Darts through Maths. There are programmes like Literacy through Construction, through Car Maintenance, through Cookery, through Gardening – all are designed to be enticing and accessible – and they all, also, demonstrate one of the hallmarks of NALA – the provision of services in a friendly, informal atmosphere, so that people will be comfortable as they begin to deal with their illiteracy, and then stay engaged as they travel on a path of learning.
And a decent path of learning is vital to everyone. As the economy recovers, the Government recognises that we must ensure that everyone’s quality of life improves, and everyone feels included. To this end, we are committed to developing a new Integrated Framework for Social Inclusion, and a public consultation on the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2018 to 2021 is currently underway. We know there needs to be a greater focus on modernising the social protection system, on improving effectiveness and efficiency of social transfers and on strengthening active inclusion policies.
It’s all about doing as much as we can to promote equality… our equality legislation and infrastructure has been around for almost twenty years now and it is effective, including, as it does, a series of strategies, each focused on a particular equality ground.
In terms of gender equality, we have the National Strategy for Women and Girls which was launched in 2017. It aims to advance socio-economic equality for women and girls, to promote their physical and mental well-being and to increase their visibility and participation in leadership. In addition, the Gender Pay Gap consultation took place last year of course and an analysis of the submissions is currently underway.
For travellers, I think it’s fair to say that the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021 will make practical quality of life improvements, while the first anniversary of the historic recognition of traveller ethnicity was celebrated last month.
And we have a comprehensive Migrant Integration Strategy too. It was launched last year, with the vision, at its heart, that migrants would be facilitated to play a full role in Irish society, that integration is a core principle of Irish life, and that Irish society and institutions work together to promote that integration.
And the numbers who no doubt wish to integrate, are pretty sizeable.
According to the 2016 census, over 600,000 people in Ireland speak a foreign language at home. These figures certainly show the rich diversity in our population. But they also show where supports may be needed. For migrants without proficiency, there is no question but that access to English language education is an essential step towards integration.
English for Speakers of Other Languages is something I am actually very interested in, given the integration part of my portfolio. And I am delighted that all levels of ESOL are offered in both Laois and Offaly, as indeed they are in many other counties.
It is heartening that the number of people on the live register has more or less been halved over the past six years, with the number of long term social welfare claimants dropping by over 23,000. These figures confirm employment opportunities are opening up for all. But there are still issues of socio-economic disadvantage, issues which involve a range of solutions – some general, some targeted, some positively discriminatory. At the moment, consideration is been given to adding a new ground of ‘socio-economic’ status into the equality legislative code. This will necessitate, first of all, a research project to establish the extent and prevalence of socio-economic discrimination which needs to be addressed. The research will consider whether or not such discrimination is occurring in relation to employment or in relation to access to goods and services, or both. It will establish whether a legislative response is needed and, if so, which legislation needs to be amended. And if the new ground is added, we will ensure that it is practical and easy to interpret by both the person the law seeks to protect and by employers, service providers and businesses who need to be aware of their obligations.
Turning to wider societal issues, as Minister for Justice, I am of course obliged, to be tough on crime. I also need however to be tough on the causes of crime, and as such I am acutely aware of the many societal issues crime can be associated with – such as economic deprivation, unemployment, low levels of educational achievement and substance misuse.
It is sad though, to reflect on the fact that that the first opportunity many individuals have to improve their literacy is while in Prison. But the staff of the Prison Service work to ensure a broad-based, flexible and relevant education service is delivered within Prisons. It is designed to cater for the complex needs of persons in custody and it covers a wide spectrum from Basic Literacy to Third Level programmes. Its aim, of course, is to lead to a more positive future which will reduce the chances of re-offending. And I am pleased to say that each of the 13 Prison Education Centres offers literacy programmes to people in custody and also that the Prison Service and Dublin City University are planning an assessment of the literacy and numeracy and digital literacy competences of people in custody later this year. This will provide a very useful benchmark and assist in planning future educational programmes.
Of course it’s the personal stories which tell the real tale of the value of the literacy support service in prisons. I was told of one man, who, while serving a life sentence, learned to read and write and worked his way up to the Leaving Cert. He has now completed a number of Level 5 & 6 but with his self-confidence growing along with his love of learning, he has actually foregone the opportunity to start a degree with the Open University in favour of developing his advocacy skills.
He now runs a number of anti-violence and mediation courses within the prison and has been offered a role in this work following his release. Every time he speaks in public or writes about his learning journey, he thanks his first literacy tutor and attributes his success to 'all in the prison school'. He is quite adamant that without having learned to read and write, he would have served his sentence doing menial jobs around the prison, would not have developed either cognitively or emotionally and would be "leaving the prison no better than when he came in" - with fewer opportunities and a bleaker outlook on life.
While his story is striking, there are many smaller, but still individually very significant successes. Take for example, the prison student who had to be helped to write his first ever greeting card on Mother’s Day. He hadn't joined the literacy groups as he wanted to keep his difficulties secret but was making the card in the craft class. But that helped him decide to take the plunge, he decided to tackle his reading and writing and he has since signed up for QQI Level 2 modules in reading and writing. This, I believe, is only the start of his learning journey.
There are other stories. I have heard about some prisoners in Cork who have been motivated to address their literacy difficulties in order to participate in a sports coaching programme and gain QQI accreditation. For them, and for so many others, becoming confident in their ability to read and write is life changing. Not, of course, that I need to tell you any of this, as you have been at the centre of so many stories like these and you have made this transformative difference to so many lives.
So thank you for that. And I know that as you continue your work of advancing adult literacy and numeracy policy, many more lives will be transformed too.
And as they are, and as more people enter that world of comfort with language, I suppose the rest of us can all do our bit to make that language as accessible as possible. As a solicitor I know I am a member of the profession which is probably most at fault when it comes to overly complicated and jargon laden language, but historically at least, governments were perhaps not much better.
I’m glad to say that that is getting better. My own Department has consulted with NALA on various occasions in relation to documents we are publishing and we have committed in our Communications Strategy 2016-2018 to embed the use of plain English into our work. The Department has set up an internal network dedicated to improving both internal and external communications, which has received training in plain English and is currently undertaking a mass review of content on thewww.justice.ie website with this and other improvements in mind.
I also particularly welcome the recent Government decision, taken on 19th December, to implement a new unified identity across our public services with plain English and accessibility at its core. The citizen focus of this new initiative will greatly improve the experience of people accessing government services and will apply a standardised best practice approach to how we present information to citizens.
So thank you for your input into all of that, and thank you too, for the wonderful work you do. And all that remains is for me to wish you all well with your conference and to declare it officially open.
Thank you.