This is something that I am very passionate about. It is something that affects us all. It is about financial literacy: understanding how a mortgage works, understanding how contributions to a pension can compound, understanding how people can better manage their own financial situations individually and, ultimately, understanding how people can make the best possible lives for themselves. That comes back to financial literacy and financial awareness. In secondary school, there are courses on accounting, which teaches you the specifics and the technicalities of accounting - your debits and credits. There is economics that teaches you how an economy functions, and there is macroeconomics and microeconomics. There is also business studies, that looks at marketing, HR, European affairs and all such matters. However, the key is that there is no real personal financial education in our schooling system. Nobody is teaching young people: how to go about applying for a mortgage, what the qualifying criteria are, how you ensure you are maximising the potential of your pension, and how you ensure you are working towards an initiative for the future that will be beneficial to both yourself and your family into the future. Essentially, I am calling for consideration of an element of financial literacy to be brought into our education system. I do not know any education system where it has been brought in but there are so many people online who claim to be financial experts or who portray financial advice and they might not necessarily have the credentials or qualifications. I am not saying teachers should do a qualification to be financial adviser or become an expert in insurance products, rather question whether we as a society would not benefit significantly more financially if everyone had a base level of financial literacy. I see it across my constituency clinics and in dealings I have with people, that sometimes people do not understand how the system functions, how banking works, how they can best protect themselves in the event of something going wrong or how they can plan for a future. I welcome the proposal to bring in the State saving scheme. That will be a huge opportunity but, like that, it is an investment and people need to know what are they investing in. From the start of this year, there are now thousands of people in auto-enrolment. Those are people who were not already in a pension, who were working hard and earning money but who were not contributing to their future retirement and now they are auto-enrolled into a pension. You would have to ask if they know what they are a part of. Do they know the potential of it? There are probably pamphlets and leaflets and everything online to explain it, but that education needs to come from the ground up. It was Warren Buffett and Albert Einstein who said the eighth wonder of the world was compound interest, because the power of it is significant. I believe that if financial literacy were in our schools, it would greatly help our young people as they go throughout life in managing their personal financial situations. Money is still a taboo topic in Irish society and people do not want to talk about their money situations. It would greatly benefit our country going forward for everyone to have a base level understanding of financial literacy.

Sentiment score: 0.21

I really appreciate the Minister of State's engagement on this issue. I welcome the response from the Minister, Deputy Naughton, and the financial literacy framework and directive that are in place. I know about that because I experienced it when I was in secondary school. I was really interested in commerce, economics and accounting and I went on to study accounting. I took those three subjects and did not do any science subjects. I was exposed to all those different elements and received a well-rounded learning in them. However, students who do not choose those subjects might only get exposed to those lessons in higher level mathematics if they do compound interest or the repayment calculation for their leaving certificate. There is a focus on money in secondary school but it is very fragmented. We need a whole-of-life approach to how this is taught to young people for the benefit of their future. I could not agree more regarding credit unions. The role they can play is absolutely transformative in educating young people on how saving can benefit them in the future, whether for college, learning a trade, as mentioned, or otherwise. It is really important to educate students on how money functions specifically in an Irish context, including how different Government schemes and grant opportunities function. That aspect of the functioning of money can be very effective in terms of its impact on people's personal lives. This is an area where there is more work to be done. It is also about bringing all the elements together in one holistic approach to educating people about financial literacy and making them aware of how to manage their money and how they can take control of their own circumstances. As I said, there are a lot of people in the autumn enrolment who might not fully understand how money functions and how having knowledge of it will benefit them in the future.

Sentiment score: 0.31