One Cavan-Monaghan election candidate is urging parents to look into what she calls "the graphic and over-sexualised" content of the new Social, Personal and Health Education. Or SPHE, curriculum. Cavan County Councillor Sarah O'Reilly says she "shares the apprehension of many people" who have contacted her about the new curriculum on the back of a video posted online by a secondary school teacher recently describing the content of the new education programme.
Cllr O'Reilly says the sexual terms explored and explained in the SPHE curriculum are "way beyond the realms of what most parents and teachers consider normal sexual behaviour". She also says the content is "most definitely way beyond appropriate for the maturity and development" of junior cycle students aged 12 to 14. Speaking on the Joe Finnegan Show earlier, the Aontú rep says she has received a "huge amount" of phone calls from local people concerned about the gender identity part of the programme too, because "not everyone believes in gender identity because it's an ideology not fact," she said.
Joe Finnegan quoted the Minister for Education Norma Foley who previously said the SPHE programme was designed following extensive public consultation and is "a reflection of the times." Cllr O'Reilly's response discounted that assertion. "There was extensive consultation and many parents wrote in worried about the explicit content that would be contained in this. Unfortunately, the NCCA have a board and there are very powerful minority groups on those boards who do have unusual levels of power in swaying content."
