Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

I will make two comments in response. First, I can recall a case of a second level school in the west where the patron had decided to close the school. The Department did an analysis, having regard to school transport costs. Notwithstanding that the school had 250 pupils, we calculated that it was more cost efficient and of more benefit to the local community to leave a second level school in the town. There was a Catholic patron at second level and it transferred the patronage to the local VEC, as it was at the time. Work like that can be done. At a very high level, we have Project Ireland 2040 and we have economic targets to develop populations in the regions in scale. I am on the project 2040 delivery board and a lot of work is being done to bring together perspectives from the different Departments to enable economic growth, including houses and jobs. Obviously, educational infrastructure will link to that in the regions. At a high level, there is a serious policy to seek to have diversity of economic growth and capital investment from the State to support that.