Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)

I support this motion. Although I have nothing personal against the people who put forward the motion, one would have to say they must have a neck as thick as the proverbial whatever to move it. In fairness, it is an excellent issue to raise, because something needs to be done about the situation.

Having listened to the Minister yesterday, it seems he does not intend under any circumstance to turn on this issue. We will see about that. All he should do is look at the number of people who have gathered outside the gate of this House tonight, with only 48 hours notice, to understand the importance of this issue for rural Ireland. He says he does not like the rural urban divide or to see the divisions being created by certain people. The biggest offender in this regard is the Minister himself. What he is doing to rural Ireland with his proposals demonstrates a complete bias against people in rural Ireland, nothing else. The Minister let out his true feelings yesterday on the future he sees for rural Ireland. He told us the worldwide trend is for people to move from rural to urban areas. Perhaps that is true, but the Minister should take a closer look at the reason for that.

If local train stations and hospitals are closed, if local schools are ruined, if people are prevented from cutting turf and if their local public transport system is destroyed, one can only expect that people will be forced to move from rural areas. They have no choice about it.

The Minister manipulated pupil-teacher ratios here yesterday. Everyone knows how he manipulated them to indicate that rural Ireland was getting a better deal than anywhere else. Nobody believes that. If we are to protect the future of rural Ireland and do not want a 100% exodus towards urban Ireland, instead of looking at the low numbers in the classrooms and asking why these small classes deserve so many teachers, we should turn the argument on its head and examine why there are so few people living in rural Ireland. We should solve that problem and then the Minister will not be able to stand up and ask how a school can be viable with such low numbers of pupils.

The notion that people want to leave rural Ireland is incorrect. I said on my first day in the Dáil that 19 out of the 20 people in my house had to emigrate. They left rural Ireland, but not because they wanted to. Some of them are now in Dublin and many of my friends are now in Dublin, Galway and elsewhere, but not one of these people wanted to leave rural Ireland. The reason they left is that Government after Government has been without a plan for rural Ireland. As a result, people had no choice but to leave it. I do not want to leave rural Ireland. Nobody wants to leave. If the problem is there are not enough pupils then we need to ensure there are enough pupils.

What sickened me most yesterday was the Minister's attitude to people who may not be as smart as he is. In fairness, he admitted he was not very quick off the mark when the Labour Party got back into Government. However, stating that if we were going to act like slow learners, he would have to put it up on the board a few times is not only unbecoming of a Minister for Education but is a resigning offence. Is the Minister telling us that he is intolerant of people who need to be told something twice or three times because, perhaps, they do not have a similar IQ level to him? Is he saying these people should not be tolerated? It is a bit low for a Minister for Education to goad the Opposition and suggest they are slow learners and, therefore, are somehow not right or good enough to be treated well. It is clear the Minister believes this. The fact he is taking help out of the classroom for, as he calls them, "slow learners", proves that.

The Minister is wrong on this. Believe me, we will make him change his mind.

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