Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

An ignored child. That runs across the social spectrum. Perhaps the motivations in regard to delivering education equality in schools was properly constructed but perhaps we must look at the connotation and stigmatisation because there are unintended consequences, to which Deputy Mathews referred, where school X is not seen as a good feeder school for second level and so on. Those contributions are valuable and we will have an opportunity to talk about them as we go forward.

I refer to the issue of small schools. Deputy Mulherin said most small schools are in rural Ireland, although not all. She would be surprised to know there is a two-teacher school in Bluebell hiding behind an enormous church where at one by-election there were more canvassers outside the church than there were congregants inside it. One could put a Boeing 747 into the church. It was the first and only time I was ever outside it.

The value for money report, commissioned by my predecessor, Mary Coughlan, will be published in approximately the next three to four weeks. There is no fixed date yet. That is the time when there will be a debate around the issue of small schools, the cost of them, the relative merits and demerits of them, what we do about them and how we deal with the reality that citizens of the Republic living in isolated areas are entitled to access to primary education and whether they are in the same category as half a dozen schools less than 5 km from a provincial town.

I was in Drumshanbo last Friday on a constituency visit to Sligo and Leitrim. In 1975, five small rural schools in the vicinity of Drumshanbo voluntarily decided voluntarily to come together. I addressed a school of 230 pupils and 11 teachers with a whole array of support services, including an autism unit. It provided a mix and a range.

In a two-teacher or three-teacher school where the teacher is teaching two or three different classes, it can be a lottery. I believe it was Deputy Mathews who said we all know what school we went to but we will always remember the great teachers. In the nature of things, they are not all that great, although there are some that impress.

For example, a definition of a small school in New Zealand, which has a population base similar to ours, is 200 pupils. I am not going there but we need to look at countries such as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which have similar cultures, backgrounds and traditions to ours to see how they deal with this issue. We will return to it after the value for money report has been debated.

Concern was expressed about some provisions of the Bill which recognise in law the fact on the ground and that speech and language therapy are services delivered by the HSE and not by the Department of Education and Skills. This is simply recognising the reality on the ground. I do not have the power to direct the HSE and there is a variation in the delivery of the same service in different parts of the country. If people have that experience I suggest they raise it with the Minister for Health.

That covers most of the issues we debated. We talked about giving preference to trained teachers, as distinct from retired teachers in temporary posts, and ensuring they are probated as much as possible. We talked about amending section 30 of the Teaching Council Act so that it can be activated and made real. In terms of industrial relations, we talked about the necessity to move from agreement to consultation in order to facilitate deployment.

It is a short Bill but it covers a wide spectrum of educational issues and that is one of the reasons we have had just 30 contributions to this debate. I thank Deputies for their contributions.

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