Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)

The school I attended was amalgamated in rural Ireland when there were 24 pupils in the school. There are many more houses in that area now, but there are no children. If we amalgamate a school with another school in a more populous area, the young people will be taken from that original area and they will not go back. Sections of rural Ireland are being gradually depopulated by going down the road of amalgamation. Amalgamation has been exhausted. When amalgamation was brought in at the start, free transport was provided, but that is a thing of the past now. In many areas, there is no transport at all.

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