Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)

It is an honour for me to attempt, for the first time ever, to make a change to legislation by bringing in this Bill. I thank the Technical Group for supporting me and, most importantly, I thank the group Save Our National Schools, or www.sons.ie, as they call themselves. They have done a massive amount of work on this and I hope it will not turn out to be a waste of time.

The purpose of the Bill is to make specific provision in law to protect schools which, by virtue of providing education to a geographical, cultural, religious or non-denominational community, or to a recognised Gaeltacht area or offshore island, are of such importance that their closure would result in a harmful impact upon that community or area. In a nutshell, the Bill is intended, first, to strengthen the right of children to appropriate and adequate education. One of the requirements is that we do not ask a teacher to teach seven or eight different curricula at the one time. Second, it is intended to strengthen the rights of teachers with regard to multi-grade teaching arrangements as, similarly, it is not fair to expect teachers to teach that many different curricula as it puts too much pressure on and is not fair to the children. The Bill also aims to ensure that educational planning is undertaken on a proactive basis which is not based upon the enrolment of any one year but is rather based upon demographic trends established over a number of years. The idea behind this is that at the end of a school year principals will not be scrambling around trying to find any spare child in the area, as they will know well in advance what needs to be done.

For years, we have had an erosion of small schools and, as a result, the identity of an area is lost forever. This erosion was accelerated in the last budget. I wish to copperfasten the future of these schools through legislation which will compel the Government to think again.

The main point that I predict will be thrown against this Bill is that we are in an economic crisis. There are times when I wonder if the Government actually realises we read the newspapers. We know there is an economic crisis so, please, do not say that to me. We are well aware of it, so fair enough on that one. In an economic crisis, however, why make it worse by thrashing our best assets? It does not make sense. It is suggested that for every €1 spent on primary education, we get €5 back. I do not believe there is anywhere out there bar Greece, if someone bought its bonds, that would give back those yields. However, I believe we would get more back from education than Greece at the end of the day.

One of the best descriptions of the importance of small rural schools comes from the broadcaster Olivia O'Leary, a past pupil of a rural primary school in County Carlow. She speaks sense, this lady, or she did in the last couple of weeks anyway. I heard it on one of her radio columns on RTE Radio 1's "Drivetime" programme. She put it beautifully when she said:

One of the most precious things you can give a child is a sense of place. Civic pride, responsible citizenship, community involvement are all nurtured by the fact that you have a stake in a place and no matter where you go, its map is imprinted on your heart.

Let us hope for our children's sake that nobody takes that map away from them. They are trying to take it away from them and they are threatening their sense of place.

This Bill on its own will not achieve anything - I have no problem with saying that. It must be done in tandem with a real plan for the development of rural Ireland. This is as much for the sake of urban Ireland as for rural Ireland because there is limited cash available and if one area is not working to its best, this will affect another area. These schools are the seeds of this future. Once these unique seeds are lost, they will be gone forever.

Only last week, a school called Mantua national school in Roscommon disappeared off the face of the earth, and with it the identity of that area forever. Mantua - just think of the name. The first person I met from Mantua came into my secondary school. We were marvelling over it, asking "Where is this place, Mantua?", because it sounded like something from another country or another world. That is what we have in Ireland - we have such variety that even places only six or seven miles down the road seem exotic. They will not seem exotic if they do not exist any more.

In his speech on the Fianna Fáil Private Members' motion on small schools in February, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, stated: "In recent years [rural schools and rural areas] have been threatened, not by overt political action but [by] the ever increasing trend towards urbanisation on all five continents." I do not agree with this statement. It is inaction on the development of a sustainable local economy for rural Ireland that has led to its depopulation. It is inaction on the development of real local democracy, in which people can make decisions for themselves, that has led to depopulation. It is the massive inequality in single farm payments, which go to people such as the Goodmans as opposed to the small family farms, that has led to depopulation. This does not happen by accident. When the Minister speaks about trends, he should remember he has a massive influence that can change such trends. Trends do not happen by magic or some omnipotent being making decisions. We the people decide.

The decisions made by the Government at budget time yet again influenced the trend to drive people further into urban areas. I know the majority of my childhood neighbours left our town because they had no choice, not because of a trend. Pretty much every one of them would like to return given half the chance. Ireland is a multi-patterned cloth of a country which is slowly but surely being denuded of its colour and variety. That is a not a good development. From now on, instead of asking why would one need a school for a small population, we need to ask why is there such a small population in the first place.

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