Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to say a few words as well. I am on the board of management of a rural school so I know at first hand the issues that have put us under serious pressure over the past few years. A few other schools on the rural peninsula where I live are under severe pressure. The problem is numbers. I thank each of the witnesses for their presence, their presentations and the work they have done. I also pay tribute to the boards of management and the parents' associations that work voluntarily, give their time freely and are struggling. I noted with a passing glance on the front page of a newspaper in a shop the other day all the new instructions and rules the Minister is coming up with for boards of management. Does the Government think we are all paid or something? Why does it continue to make it more and more difficult for boards of management to carry out their work in schools? I find it quite incredible. Many boards of management and schools are criticised just because they are church schools. The State must realise that only for the church keeping school doors open and paying for and building schools, we would be in a difficult position. I can assure the committee and the witnesses that many Ministers in recent times have tried to take churches out of schools only to realise very quickly the value the churches have had in schools. Thankfully, never once has a church issue come up in the school in whose board of management I am involved. We do not discriminate against anybody coming into our school, and I would like to have that stated as a fact. Neither I nor any board of management would tolerate that but we are made to look as if we were some sort of hierarchy that would refuse people coming into our schools because of this, that and the other.

I see many other issues in the day-to-day running of the school. One of the schools in my community is a one-teacher school. The school itself pays a second teacher. The board of management is in an incredible situation in that this is allowed to happen in this State. There is no clear understanding between rural schools and urban schools. In urban Ireland, areas can be highly populated, but in rural Ireland, no matter what one does, there are few employment opportunities, there is a falling population and there is no clear understanding in government of the situation. Unfortunately, it is the school sitting within the latter kind of area that is punished severely and the pupils who are punished in the long term. We talk about walking principals, which is the best way to describe them. There is a school in Schull in which there are about 150 students. Diarmuid Duggan is an excellent principal of the highest class but, at the same time, he is stretched to the limit. He is trying to carry out his teaching duties while also trying to deal with the day-to-day issues of parents and trying to run a school. This is an incredible situation to be left with, and there is very poor understanding of it.

Reference was made to broadband. In many rural schools we can forget about 100 Mbps because there is no bit at all. The problem in such schools is having any kind of broadband service. Some of them will be waiting for quite some time to come because I have been to quite a lot of meetings and I cannot see this being resolved in the future.

If any one of the witnesses has recommendations about the Gaeltacht, I ask him or her to make them to the Gaeltacht committees. It is a very important time to do so. There is a Gaeltacht, Irish language and islands committee, and the clerk to this committee is also the clerk to that committee. He will speak to the witnesses after this meeting if they would like to submit any details or make any submissions.

We are examining sustainable rural Ireland and our schools. Another question I need to ask the witnesses concerns newly qualified teachers and the very low wages they are expected to start off on and the pressures under which they find themselves. Are they staying with it? Are they moving abroad? Are teachers being lost because of this issue? Maybe we as a political system, as politicians, can help the witnesses in trying to raise awareness in the Dáil that there needs to be a clearer understanding between rural and urban schools.

If that is not there going forward, we will always have the issues we are discussing here today.