Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)

I thank the Minister for not reading from a script and appreciate that his comments were from the heart. We all want what is best for children, but families and I are terrified that schools built through the hard work of previous Administrations that saw fit to invest money in them will lose teachers and be downgraded. As the Minister stated, the number of national schools has decreased from 6,000 to approximately half that figure because the larger number could not be sustained.

I am familiar with Lauragh, Tuosist and other areas. All Deputies have small schools in their areas that they want to keep open. We want families to have the option of keeping their children nearby instead of putting them on buses to centralised locations. We will work with the Minister to achieve everything that we can.

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