Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Tá áthas orm deis a bheith agam cúpla focal a rá i dtaobh an Bhille seo agus ba mhaith liom an Grúpa Teicniúil a mholadh as ucht an Bhille seo a chur os comhair an Tí anocht.. The Minister's actions last Christmas show his value system. He hit urban DEIS 1 programme schools with one hand and then he hit small rural schools with the other, but advantaged larger schools were left unscathed as a result of the decisions taken by the Minister. He made these decisions without any policy analysis, or, if he has a policy analysis, he has not made it clear except for one policy, that is, he wants small schools to amalgamate.

I find this extraordinary because he made those decisions while a value for money audit was going on in his Department. He did not decide to meet the requirements of one year's budget although he could have done this by spreading the burden throughout the school system. He could have made the savings in this small way. Instead he made the decision for four years without reference to the value for money audit. The Minister does not actually know the value he will get for whatever savings he believes he will get because he has not received the report yet. This is bizarre decision making of the highest order.

The Department is meant to refer to outputs. The new buzz word in the Estimates process is "outputs". However, the Department was oblivious to outputs when it made this decision. As my colleague pointed out, these schools have been shown to work time and again. In other words, if one puts in the money, one gets the results at the end of the chain. Irrespective of parents' backgrounds, a phenomenal level of these children either go on to a trade or third level education. If we are to consider value for money, surely we should accept that the idea of education is to give young people choice in life. Instead, this is what the children of the small schools of Ireland get.

A greater issue is at stake, that is, the community. Many people do not understand the value of a community because they cannot measure it or see it. Having grown up in the city and then moved to a small rural community, I can testify to the great benefit to the country, urban and rural, of a strong community. I am keen for us to put more effort into building up communities within urban areas where there are high levels of social deprivation. Only in the building up of communities will we find a solution to our problems. This can only occur where there are strong communities and a togetherness and where there is a seamless totality between the wider community of parents, teachers and pupils, all of whom belong to a community where supports are in place. They can work and yield tangible results for the children who emerge from these schools. However, they may decide none of it is worthwhile because the Minister has a principled objection to rural Ireland and small schools.

There are many things I could say about this issue. I support the comments of my colleague on Protestant schools. It is extraordinary that we are debating this issue on the day a signal event took place in Seanad Éireann, that is, when the Grand Master of the Orange Order addressed the House. He levelled one criticism against this State. He said many things had happened and changed for the better. He specified in particular things that happened under the previous Government. The one black mark he mentioned, however, was the decimation of what he saw as the small Protestant communities along the Border.

This is a country where reconciliation and peace have been achieved and where there has been a great emphasis on building links between all communities to make everyone feel they are a part of the State and cherished. Despite this, the Government seems to be hell-bent on trying to alienate a community that passionately wants to be fully part of our State but believes it is now being acted against in a discriminatory way. Ansin, tagaimid chuig an Ghaeltacht. Tá an Rialtas ag rá go bhfuil sé chun an straitéis 20 bliain don Ghaeilge a chur chun cinn, go bhfuil sé ag seasamh léi agus go bhfuil an Ghaeltacht thar a bheith tábhachtach. Tá a fhios ag an Aire Stáit, bhí mé thiar leis i Leitir Mealláin, agus tá a fhios aige go bhfuil na scoileanna beaga Gaeltachta riachtanach do thodhchaí na teanga agus go bhfuil sé níos fusa sna scoileanna beaga an Ghaeilge a chaomhnú mar theanga scoile. Chomh maith leis sin, sna ceantair atá ar imeall na Gaeltachta, má dhéantar iarracht comhnascadh a dhéanamh, is é an Béarla a bheidh in uachtar, ní hí an Ghaeilge. Na hiarrachtaí móra atá á ndéanamh ag daoine sna ceantair ina bhfuil meascan gasúr le Gaeilge agus gan Ghaeilge ag dul ar scoil, scriosfar ar fad iad. Ach is cuma leis an Rialtas. Níl aon údar aige cén fáth go bhfuil sé seo á dhéanamh.

I ask one final thing of the Minister of State. I have disagreed with what has been done since the beginning. I believe the decisions made for this year were wrong. I know that the issue of the school in Inis Meáin was raised with the Minister of State in the Seanad last week. It is a scandal that there will be eight pupils in that island school but the Department will not allow the second teacher to remain although they agreed to give up all the learning support hours. I call on the Minister of State to put the remainder of this four year plan into abeyance until we see the value for money report. We should have an opportunity to debate the report and examine it in detail at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education so that we can test absolutely whether the policies are being followed by the Department in the interests of the children of the country or whether they are simply Civil Service decisions endorsed by the Minister which have taken no account of the sociological, social and educational effects of young children in rural Ireland.

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