Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

Yes. As for the issue regarding the number of classes, the pupil-teacher ratio is what is set down. The management of the number of children within their class is a matter for the local management and a number of class sizes can be greater than 28, for example, because of local decisions that are made when people wish to avoid having different numbers of classes within the same room, etc. However, it is important that principals in particular should consider the idea of having smaller multigrade classes, as opposed to having particularly large differences in class sizes between, for example, fifth and sixth class or second and third class or whatever. The position is that despite the huge difficulties we face in respect of the economy, the Government is still in a position to appoint teachers to deal with the present demographics. Given the challenges that exist-----

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