Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis chun labhairt ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo. I attended a small rural primary school in Drinagh many moons ago and taught in a small school in Leap in County Cork as well as in a number of other schools. I was the principal of a small rural school in Skibbereen before entering political life. During my time as principal, I was acutely aware of the job's responsibilities. As a public representative, I am once again conscious of those responsibilities.

Priorities are all important and it would be remiss of me not to mention that I was reminded of them last weekend, which I spent in my home town of Clonakilty where flooding caused devastation and cost many people their businesses and homes. It would not take long for such an event to refocus one's mind on the real priorities. As a public representative, I have a responsibility to stand up and be counted. It is easy to be against everything and for nothing, but there is a job of work to be done and I am passionate about being honest with people. They will get a chance to have their say on me in a few years' time.

I believe in menu option politics. We cannot be against everything. We must stand up and consider the lesser of all evils. My priority in education, the area about which I am most passionate, is and always has been the provision of resources to children with special needs. Every opportunity I have to speak on educational matters, I plead with the Minister and Minister of State to continue protecting resources in this regard. I acknowledge the resources that have been provided to date to the most vulnerable children in the education system.

My primary focus in this debate is the child. I do not mean to be smart, as I have a great deal of respect for many of Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan's opinions on this matter, but the Bill lacks an emphasis on the child. School buildings, communities, teachers' conditions and so on receive more emphasis. The child and what is best for him or her must be at the heart of this debate. There is a difference between better educational practice and best educational practice. The best practice is to have no more than two curriculum streams in any single classroom and to have no more than two classes per teacher. Anything more would dilute best educational practice.

Deputy Spring referred to children's social skills. Team sports and learning are important, but a variety of teachers in a building is a necessity. Teachers matter, not the school. A minimum of four teachers teaching eight classes is the maximum. I am passionate in this regard.

There is no such thing as a bad school or a good school, but there is such a thing as an underperforming teacher. In many cases a teacher may be underperforming and parents are correct if they are not happy for their child to have the same teacher for four years. That is far from ideal and not what we should be seeking in future. This is an opportunity for schools to consider the future of education.

Many parishes in my constituency have two or three different schools competing for resources and students, and parents are exercising choice in moving children to different schools depending on the teachers available. I want to see us grasping the nettle and looking ahead at the future provision of education for our children. We must consolidate rural education. If the position continues where each school is fighting for students and limited resources, they will all choke eventually and there will be no rural education. If all the rural schools close we will have to go to schools in towns. I want to ensure we can retain rural education. If two or three schools in a five-mile radius are struggling, they can consider how to provide the best education for children in future.

It is foolhardy to speak about the decimation of rural Ireland. I was a teacher in 1996 and the figures that will be achieved at the end of these changes to the pupil-teacher ratio are the same as those achieved when I was teaching. Those were not bizarre teaching conditions and we were not in the dark ages; it was the recent past. Having 20 students and two teachers, a ratio of 10:1, is hardly unfair or unjustified at this time. There is an example of a school in my constituency that has a teacher with the three classes of junior infants, senior infants and first class and a total of 34 students. Three miles up the road a school has two teachers and 17 students, with one teacher having eight students. There is something wrong in that case and the Constitution cherishes all our children equally.

The child and educational welfare must be at the heart of this debate. As a parent and educator, I believe the limited resource pool of teachers must be applied evenly and fairly across the board to every student. Having one teacher with six or seven students in one room and another teacher with up to 36 students in another room is unfair, inequitable and it cannot continue. Such a process is not in the best interests of the child in the classroom. I will be voting in the best interests of all our children.

See this speech in context