Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The issues have become conflated. At one stage we were discussing the composition of the ETB itself, but now we are discussing boards of management at VEC schools. We have 723 post-primary schools and approximately 250 are in the community and VEC, or free voluntary, sector. Leaving aside isolated schools in isolated communities and to take Dublin city as an example, it has a school population of approximately 31,000 in 80 schools, which means the average population is less than 300. They are simply not viable in terms of subject choice or varying levels of subject. There will be some degree of consolidation and rationalisation over time given the exigencies of demographic pressures, and not only the free voluntary sector will contract. Increasingly we must have a line of democratic accountability and not elections for a school board as exist in some parts of the United States. We have separated education from the local authority. In Britain it is a function of the local authority, in some cases with spectacular success, but in many other areas with not as much success. If one does not have a good local authority, one does not have good schools. This is why the Labour Party Government under Tony Blair introduced the academies for non-performing schools, which the Conservative Party has accelerated.

I am open to the idea that on the board of management of each school there must be somebody with a direct line of answerability and accountability to the ETB whom the board members and management of the ETB can ask what is happening, just as Deputy McConalogue outlined. Most of the time it will not be a problem because the leadership and principal should run the school effectively, but in the event there is a problem having a democratic person who has made himself or herself available to go on a panel to be considered for appointment to the board of management of two or three schools in his or her area who is then formally nominated by the ETB will create a link. I will reflect on this and come back on Report Stage. We might have preliminary discussions on it before we go into it formally.