On a number of occasions, the Minister has pointed out that Ireland has an unusually large number of small primary schools primarily, although not exclusively, in rural areas. He has rightly pointed out that there is a value for money audit going on into the spending attached to these schools. Our position on this review is that it is about maximising the educational return to communities from these schools and not about finding ways of rationalising them. There may be areas where shared resources, such as specialist teaching and IT support, could make a big difference. In my county, our vocational education committee provides information technology services to voluntary secondary schools and to a number of primary schools. That type of initiative must be given further momentum in all areas of public service, whether central or local government. This would correspond to some of the clustering work which has been carried out so well under disadvantaged area schemes. However, I want to make it clear, as we did well before the election, we do not, and will not, support any programme to rationalise smaller schools.

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