Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

I compliment Deputy Brendan Smith for bringing this important motion before the House. I welcome the visitors in the Visitors Gallery. I am glad of the opportunity to speak on this critical motion for the future of our small schools. Such schools are predominantly in rural areas and include minority faith schools. The proposed cuts are discriminatory and extremely regressive. As a proud past-pupil of a small two-teacher school - which later became a one-teacher school - I can speak tonight with personal experience of this subject. That experience was a very positive one. The educational establishment I attended was not only a school, but also a community facility. It was a venue for community meetings such as neighbourhood watch and community games. It was the lifeblood of the rural area. In my experience, most of the work carried out in small schools, such as maintenance, gardening and the board of management was all done on a voluntary basis.

We are under no illusions about the serious economic difficulty currently being experienced both at home and abroad. Earlier this week, the Taoiseach was part of the team that negotiated the inter-governmental treaty to help secure the eurozone's future. We share the view that our deficit must be brought down to 8.6% of GDP by the end of the year. We published a fully-costed budget on how we would achieve that, but we totally disagree with the discriminatory manner in which the Government is pursuing this agenda. On Tuesday, the Taoiseach told this House: "It is for us here, not for Europe, to decide how we should close the gap in spending over taxation". In the last edition of the Sunday Independent Colm McCarthy asked where is the reform agenda on which the Government fought the last election. He used the example of the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, reversing his predecessor's decision to abolish a quango that cost €3 million a year. The Minister did that at the same time as he launched a savage attack on rural Ireland and people of minority faiths. What would €3 million do for our small schools? What happened to the Minister giving people a choice of patronage? This decision will reduce choice, as minority faith schools will close. Where are the savings to be made? In the past decade we have witnessed major investments in personnel and physical infrastructure. If schools amalgamate, as is the Minister's desire, what will happen to these buildings? Where will the funds come from to provide extensions to new, amalgamated schools? The programme for Government was negotiated in the full knowledge of our financial circumstances and refers to protecting front line services. Is the Minister telling the people in the Visitors Gallery, outside and throughout Ireland that teachers in small schools are not front line services? We are holding the Government to account for what it promised in the programme for the Government, not the lies the parties told in the election.

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