Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

As a former teacher who taught in a rural school for 15 years before moving to an urban school, I acknowledge the excellent education provided in many of our small schools.

I attended a small two-teacher school in Belmont, County Galway, and I had the opportunity recently to visit this school to raise its green flag and to see the great work in the school. I viewed their projects, their work and their wonderful céilí band in which children played harps and banjos. The school had the most up-to-date IT smart boards, a wonderful website and was a place of quality learning and teaching. We are, however, in difficult times. Some 80% of the annual budget is tied up in the salaries and pensions of teachers, SNAs and lecturers. As a nation, we must recognise there is currently a great strain on our public finances. We must ensure the very valuable but limited resources available to our education system are used in the best possible way.

I understand small schools are concerned if numbers drop. Last night the Minister for Education and Skills outlined the rationale behind raising the pupil-teacher ratio in rural schools. He also outlined an appeals system where small schools can appeal if they know their pupil enrolment will increase. I, along with my colleagues in Fine Gael and the Labour Party, had a two-hour meeting with the Minister last week and this appeals system was discussed. I am confident we can deliver this appeals system to schools if they are in danger of losing numbers and the following year the projections are that those numbers will increase. I welcome this confirmation from the Minister that the existing staff appeals-----

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