Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

I wish to speak specifically on behalf of Scoil Eoin, Balloonagh, Tralee. I have raised several times in this House the issue of accommodation at this school. A solemn promise in respect of a new school given prior to the last election by the former Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Mary Hanafin, has not been delivered.

Scoil Eoin will lose a teacher next September based on its enrolment figures as of 30 September last. The school had at that time 367 pupils on its roll book, but by November it had 378 pupils, an increase of 11 pupils which would have allowed the school to retain that teacher. Broken promises aside, perhaps the Minister will agree to have his Department examine the reference date in this respect.

If Fianna Fáil had kept its promise made during the last general election to provide 4,000 extra teachers, thereby reducing the pupil-teacher ratio over four years, Scoil Eoin would have retained its teacher. Whatever about the con job perpetrated in 2002 on the Irish people, teachers, the INTO, pupils and parents, the con job in the last election is unforgivable. This is the bottom line. It is amazing how the INTO, teachers and everybody else accepted the Government's bona fides on the 2002 promise, but to be caught again is inexplicable.

Will the Minister consider the reference date of 30 September? It is grossly unfair that a school where children arrive in the month following the opening in September, which they do, is penalised the following year. The Minister and I are teachers and we know full well that every child in the country must go through the primary school system. It is the only aspect of the education system that is equal. We spend less on it than we do on secondary and post-primary education. All that should be done is that it gets a fair deal like all the other sectors of the education system.

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