Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

Deputy Flanagan's Bill would keep schools open even when there are not enough pupils to sustain them. It displays a lack of awareness of funding arrangements for small schools and, worst of all, it ignores basic realities about the state of the economy. Therefore, the Government will be opposing this Bill.

We cannot begin this debate without restating the overall financial and budgetary context that Ireland is operating in. The biggest challenge facing the Government is to step back from the edge of national insolvency. We are working hard to ensure we can pass on to our children a country that has regained once and for all its economic independence.

The House should be aware that almost 80% of the education budget goes on pay and pensions. Members should also be aware that we must find places and teachers for the additional 70,000 pupils coming into our schools over the next six years. Members also know that we have to reduce the numbers working in the public sector. We simply do not have the resources available to us to maintain all our services at current levels. The Private Members' Bill being debated here this evening is another example of how the Opposition fails to grasp this stark reality.

The most recent data from my Department show that 19% of the State's 3,165 primary schools have fewer than 50 pupils and 46% have fewer than 100 pupils. Deputies will be aware that a value for money review on small primary schools is currently being finalised in the Department. I expect that the report of the review should be available after the summer recess. I regret that it has not been available sooner to fully inform this debate but it has involved very detailed technical work.

The review will take account of diversity of provision, ethos of schools, parental choice, the language of instruction, travel distances, transport costs and the impact of schools on dispersed rural communities. It will also examine the costs of running small schools and the educational outcomes associated with small schools. Consideration is also being given to the needs of local communities and wider social and cultural factors. Public consultations were conducted as part of the review. A large response was received and a common theme from the submissions from the public was the important role that schools play in the social fabric of rural communities and this something that all of us are fully aware of. When the review is published, the Minister's intention is to lay it before the Houses to give an opportunity for Deputies and Senators to have a wide ranging debate on its outcomes and proposals.

On the children's rights provisions of the Bill proposed this evening, I might recall for the House that the Government signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children on 30 September 1990 and ratified it on 28 September 1992. By ratifying the UNCRC, Ireland has committed itself to working at national level and to international measures to achieve its objectives. For example, the principles addressed in the articles referred to in the proposed Bill are consistent with the underpinning principles of the existing legislative and policy framework in the education and training sector. Further development of the broad policy framework will be considered as part of the planned development of a White Paper in early 2013 in the context of the Government's response to the forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary school sector and also in the development of a regulatory framework for school enrolment. Other relevant initiatives include the work being undertaken by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to develop a new children and young people's policy framework, which will succeed the previous national children's strategy.

Deputies will be aware that the Government is committed to strengthening children's rights and the constitutional referendum on children scheduled for later in the year is a key commitment in the programme for Government. Given the scope and relevance of new initiatives under way across a number of Government Departments, and the fact that the convention is already binding on the State under international law, it is unnecessary to proceed with the amendments to the Education Act as proposed by Deputy Flanagan.

I want to return to the central theme of this proposed legislation, which relates to the resourcing of schools, and in particular the allocation of teachers. In February of this year, we debated the budget measures related to the teacher staffing schedule in small schools. Deputy Flanagan is merely repeating that debate. A third of all public sector employees in this State work in the education sector. It is simply not possible to completely exempt staffing levels in education from the Government's need to reduce expenditure.

Achieving savings in the education budget has required very difficult decisions to be made. This is particularly the case at a time when the school-going population is increasing, and there will be more difficult decisions in the next budget and the one after. The extremely favourable staffing provision for small schools was put in place when resources were plentiful and at a time of demographic dividend when enrolments were falling. This is no longer possible given our budgetary constraints and rapidly rising school population. We may wish it were otherwise but reductions in staffing numbers will continue to play a part in expenditure consolidation.

The last budget included a phased increase in the pupil threshold for the allocation of classroom teachers in small primary schools but those changes were made so that we can continue to sustain small schools, rather than to close them. The Opposition, which had been predicting wholesale closure of schools, got it wrong. As the Opposition well knows, there are school closures or amalgamations virtually every year. For the coming school year, five schools have indicated their intention to close; last year there were three closures and the year before there were four school closures. This is hardly the widely predicted death of rural Ireland. If one listened to Deputies opposite, one would conclude that we intended to padlock rural school gates up and down the country but the facts prove otherwise.

The only thing that is changing for small schools from next September is that their average class size will no longer be as advantageous as they have been in the past. It is no more and no less than that. The schools will still exist. It is not sustainable for the Department to continue to provide, for example, a second classroom teacher for a school that has 12 pupils, as was the case. Could anyone honestly say that we can afford to have a staffing schedule threshold that provides for a full-time classroom teacher with an average as low as six pupils per classroom - a better ratio than applies in most classes in special schools. Even when all of the phased increases are implemented, the threshold for a second teacher at 20 pupils will still be significantly lower than the minimum of 28 pupils that was required for the appointment of a second teacher in small schools prior to the late 1990s. Some teachers in small schools will call for those exceptionally favourable arrangements to continue, but one could ask how fair it is to taxpayers or to their teaching colleagues in larger schools - some of whom have to teach 30 or more pupils in their classrooms.

I accept that no school likes to lose a teacher and that the INTO and teachers like small classes. However, under the Under Croke Park agreement teachers have been given certain guarantees on basic pay and no compulsory redundancy but, in return, like all other public servants, they must demonstrate flexibility. I cannot agree with the concept being advanced by Deputy Flanagan in the Bill that some teachers should have legal rights to teach in particularly small classes. Deputy Flanagan's argument is that teachers' rights are aligned with children's rights in regard to multi-grade classes. The argument implicitly impugns the work of the many able teachers who have served their pupils well in such multi-grade classes over the years. I attended a two-teacher school with a multi-grade class. Deputy Flanagan's parliamentary assistant attended a similar school three miles from there. Both of us received an excellent education in that environment because of the commitment and talent of the teachers involved.

There are aspects of the Bill on which I accept the basic point at issue while not fully accepting the mechanism being advocated to deal with the point. The issue of how particular enrolments are used to determine the staffing allocation is a case in point. Earlier this year we noted arguments made by Deputies and others that since enrolment on the 30 September in the previous year determined the teacher allocation for the following September that schools due to lose a teacher might in fact have more pupils enrolled next September. The Minister, Deputy Quinn, responded by making the appeal process accessible to small schools, and in particular to those schools that were projecting increased enrolments that would be sufficient to allow them to retain their existing classroom posts in the longer term.

I do not accept the proposed linkage with the previous census as a basis for determining teacher allocation for any one year. The measure implemented this year is more responsive, as it captures those who are expected to attend. Census data are a snapshot in time and cannot identify those who have either left an area since the census was carried out or those that have come to live in the area more recently. Furthermore, parents may choose to drive by the nearest school in some instances to have their children attend another school.

The Department utilises a geographical information system, GIS, to analyse demographics and school enrolment data. GIS allows the Department to conduct detailed analysis on the demographics of each part of the country, and enables the Department to model a range of forecast scenarios for each area for the coming years, and to assess the likely changes to the school-going population in those areas. Given that the Department already uses multi-layered data sources for planning school infrastructural needs, I do not believe that the provisions of the Bill proposed by Deputy Flanagan in this regard are warranted.

Public policy has historically recognised the special position of island schools that are the sole educational support to island communities. The budget measure did not alter the special arrangements for such schools with three or fewer teachers. Unlike most schools, in the event that a reduction in the pupil numbers of an island school will result in the loss of the second or third teacher in the school, the post may be retained subject to certain pupil retention levels. That means that in the case of the second mainstream post the total number of pupils must be at eight or above and the school must be the only primary school remaining on the island. In the case of all other primary schools for the coming school year the figure will be 14 pupils not eight. In the case of the third classroom post, the total number of pupils must be at 45 or above where the school is the only primary school remaining on the island. That compares to all other primary schools where the figure is 51 for the coming school year of 2012 to 2013.

Public policy can be responsive to the needs of small schools but this must be done in a reasonable, balanced way and above all be realistic. It is important that the staffing levels in small schools are set at an affordable and sustainable level in particular in these difficult and challenging times. It is by doing so that we underpin the future of small schools. Let me conclude with one simple fact. In September, only 32 small schools out of 3,200 primary schools nationally will lose a teacher as a consequence of the budget measures. That gives the lie to Opposition claims about small schools losing hundreds of teachers and there being some kind of supposed attack on rural areas. Populism and rhetoric are not a solution to the challenges this country faces.

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