Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Thank you. I welcome the appeal mechanism, but not everybody knows about this. The Minister has picked last September as the date on which the pupil-teacher ratio must be examined and is implementing the cut in numbers of teachers on that basis. However, people can appeal if they believe the numbers were abnormally low on the specified date. I welcome that appeal process.

This issue illustrates the need for a broader debate throughout parishes and communities on the future educational needs of our children and how we can plan for these to be met. This concerns the organisation of schools for the most part. Schools have patrons and in areas that are predominantly Catholic, the patron is probably the bishop. We need a forum for discussion on this. It is not because the Minister has increased the pupil-teacher ratio that suddenly chaos prevails. There are already underlying problems for small schools. Aside from the concerns parents express to me, they acknowledge that in some rural areas with small schools within a few miles of each other, these schools are vigorously competing with each other for pupils. This has caused people to fall out with each other. The situation is almost like that prevailing in football clubs where people ask what club others support. That is not the way education should be. There are many issues surrounding this. I know of parents who are bypassing the school beside them and taking their children to another school because they have that choice.

Part of the dialogue on this must involve schools that may not be able to plan their future, whether that should be amalgamation or something else, because of their unique circumstances, such as a non-Catholic school, a non-denominational school or, as in the case of a school about which I wrote to the Minister, a school in a Gaeltacht area which chooses to teach its children through English while all the schools around it teach through Irish. What are the prospects for such schools? Every area has unique circumstances. We know, for example, of schools that are so far from any other schools that pupils could have a 40 km return journey to and from school each day. We would not wish for pupils to have to undertake that sort of journey.

People must be empowered and their fears addressed. I challenge patrons and boards of management to encourage parishes and communities to come together for dialogue on this so that parents do not feel sidestepped or feel that nobody cares about their children. We do care, but the issues must be discussed in a constructive fashion. Emotions must be parked. We all have feelings about things. However these feelings should not focus on a building or school, but on the best outcome for children in rural areas or areas served by small schools. This consultation and dialogue must take place, but because every area is unique, each area may come up with an individual plan. Then, it is up to us and the Minister to respond to these plans. In that way we can begin the dialogue to make proper provision for the future so that this does not become, in this instance anyway, a rural-urban divide in which spurious arguments are made about some sort of plan or mission to get rid of small schools. This is clearly not the case. Parents are concerned and these concerns and fears must be allayed. The constructive way to do this is for people to get together in dialogue. That is my challenge to patrons and boards of management. It is not out of their hands and they are not powerless. None of us is powerless. It is the law or the constitutional right of parents to decide on the education of their children.

However, we are constrained. The impression given to people by the previous Government over the past number of years that people can have whatever they want is not the case. That is not the reality of living and is not the economic reality we face now. However, we do want fairness, equity and democratic consultation and to open dialogue with people. This is the way to do it.

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