Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

We have been anxious to point out from the very beginning that there will be no forced amalgamation of any rural schools or forced closure. I do not agree that the amalgamation options have been exhausted yet. I recall a colleague of mine saying in the Seanad last week that there were seven schools in his parish, consisting of an eight-teacher school, a smattering of two-teacher schools and a one-teacher school. There are opportunities and if they are to be taken up, it will be with the willingness and at the behest of local communities. That is something we stressed from the outset.

Deputy Smith raised some concerns regarding Church of Ireland rural schools. We are actively exploring opportunities with the Northern Ireland Minister with regard to discovering whether we might create a corridor along the Border so that students on both sides might traverse it to access the type of education which reflects the ethos in which they are being raised. Discussions in that regard are ongoing.

Exploration around all of these challenges will commence with the publication of the value for money report. I am not trying to pre-empt the report - the detail of which I am not familiar with - but in general it will praise the standard of education that is being provide in rural areas. In addition, it may offer some interesting solutions, which are not apparent at this point, in the context of how we should continue to provide this very high standard of education

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