Mr. Brendan McCabe:

I will return to Deputy Daly's question regarding the notion of shared leadership across schools, which is a contentious issue that is difficult to resolve. There was mention of an amalgamation or closure of a small school anywhere in Ireland, which would straight away become very political. It is a difficult issue. We have considered all possible types of configurations in this regard. In Scotland, for example, at a local level in many places they wanted to amalgamate or close some small schools but the national government has a policy against that. It is the opposite of what is occurring in Ireland. The Netherlands has many federations of schools, and it is probably a more interesting example, with potential for the Department to examine these more closely.

Where there is a desire for it, we favour the notion that schools would form different clusters. For example, one parish could have four small schools which between them might never have an administrative principal but they would if the four were put together. There is no reason all four schools could not stay open on their respective sites but be part of one school. This is a possibility but there are others. We propose that where there is a local desire, schools should be encouraged to form different types of pilot schemes and try out different models of clustering and federation.

That could be the starting point which would lead to a more formal rationalisation of small schools, rather than compulsory closure.