Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

The value for money report will be published in the near future but it is disappointing that this decision has already been made. The Minister of State said that it is not fair to say that savings need to be made without saying where the savings should be made. I wish to point to a school, Glen national school, Edgeworthstown, County Longford, which faces losing a teacher. Its nearest school is bursting at the seams and without a shadow of a doubt in the near future people will be coming out from that school. Instead of closing and amalgamating schools why does the Department not consider the possibility of repopulating existing schools rather than constantly expanding already large schools? Why does it not propose taking pupils out of schools that are bursting at the seams and repopulating rural schools?

We have talked about abolishing quangos. The Minister's predecessor abolished a quango, the National University of Ireland, but the Minister reinstated it at a cost of €3 million per year. Why was that done? Maybe it was done to pacify and satisfy the Minister's academic friends.

Who will make the decision in the appeals process? Will it be made by the Minister or will he abdicate his responsibility and pass it over to somebody else?

The Minister of State compared small schools and schools with a pupil-teacher ratio of 28:1 but that is not a fair comparison. There are multi-talented children in multi-class settings in smaller schools. The Minister of State knows that, as he, like I, represents a rural constituency.

I ask the Minister of State to refer to this issue in the context of the discussion on opening up the patronage of many schools. The Church of Ireland and other minority faiths have come out quite publicly and said that this will have a detrimental effect on small schools.

We talk about making savings but only yesterday we saw another ministerial adviser has been appointed and once again the salary cap, which the Government promised it would introduce when it came to power, has been exceeded. These are areas where savings could be made. That can be contrasted with a position where schools are at the risk of losing a teacher for the sake of one additional pupil being enrolled for one year. I hope the Minister of State will take on board what I have said.

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