Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

I commend our education spokesperson on bringing forward this motion, because it is one which goes to the heart of many rural communities across the country. It is the rural areas this will hit hardest. What the Minister is doing in his budget is forcing the bulk of the cuts on the schools and pupils who need help most and on those rural areas throughout the country that need additional assistance.

In defending these cuts over recent weeks, the Minister has often referred to the fact there is inequity in terms of smaller schools having a better pupil-teacher ratio than schools with larger numbers of students. There is a reason for that, namely that it is more difficult for a teacher and a school with a small number of teachers to ensure students get the support they need. The Minister and most people may never have attempted to teach three or four classes in one, but it is a difficult job to do. It is for that reason it is necessary to have enhanced pupil-teacher ratios in smaller schools. I understand this may not go down well when the Minister sits with the Department of Finance mandarins to assess how the Minister will spread his budget for the year ahead but it is essential that these resources are maintained. The Minister has looked at this and decided that because it costs more to educate a student and provide a better pupil-teacher ratio in schools and areas where there are smaller numbers of teachers and students but that is no reason to make it policy to go ahead and take the initiatives he is taking.

I know the Minister has said that he does not intend to close down any schools. I would like to remind him of a response I received from him to a parliamentary question in recent days regarding schools facing into losing teachers next year. He said:

The phasing in of these measures can provide the schools concerned with time to consider the potential for amalgamation with other schools where this is feasible. If amalgamations take place, they will be voluntary and follow decisions taken by local communities and not by my Department.

What the Minister is saying here is that the objective of his cuts is to force these schools to look at amalgamation and to force them to give up the position they hold so dearly, namely the opportunity to maintain the school they have and to continue to have students educated in their local community. Yet, the Minister comes out with the headline that he will not close any school. That is a disingenuous and inaccurate approach. What underlines and is behind the policy decisions the Minister has made in his budget is a policy that will lead to the closure of schools.

Along with these cuts, the Minister also proposes changes to rural transport and he is doubling the cost per student for transport to school, despite the fact that many of the Labour Party and Fine Gael backbenchers and candidates in the most recent election made commitments to schools across the country that they would reverse proposed changes in rural transport and not increase the cost of sending pupils to school. They also promised not to go ahead with changes to the "closed" school rule with regard to transport nor with changes that are due to come into place in September, whereby siblings of pupils from a family who historically and in recent years attended one school will be forced to attend another school because the one to which they have transport is not the closest to them. The intention to increase the numbers needed to qualify for transport to school will also have an impact. It is being made more difficult for people from rural areas to ensure their children are educated in their local school.

Teachers are afraid to talk openly about the fact that it is the Minister's intention to reduce pupil-teacher ratios because by doing so they may be sending out a message to prospective parents in local areas that there is a threat over their school or that pupil-teacher ratios may decrease. The knock-on effect of that would be that parents intending to send their children to school for the first time, will consider another larger school further away. This feeds into the Minister's objective. I see him nodding to say that is exactly-----

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