Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour)

I wish to oppose this Private Members' Bill, although I commend the Deputy on introducing a Bill rather than tabling just another motion on which we could play Punch and Judy for an hour. I wonder, however, if the intention of this is to add to the Statute Book or to resurrect a motion that was debated by the House in February. I will, however, take it as legislation.

I wish to outline my disappointment with the level of hyperbole that has surrounded the small schools issue. After the INTO conference in Kerry, the union claimed to Clare FM, a very reputable local radio station that devotes considerable time to news and current affairs, that under the budgetary plans, a fifth of Clare schools would lose a teacher from September, while local teaching representatives claimed the measures would destabilise a further 60 schools in Clare. That would be a fifth of 122 national schools in the county. According to the INTO, 24 teaching posts would be lost.

In reality, the numbers for the entire State were that 73 small schools would lose a teacher in September. Of those 73 schools, 62 appealed the decision. A primary staffing appeals board was set up and there was much cynicism that the board would be a rubber stamp as previous boards of that nature had been. Nevertheless, of the 62 appeals, 41 were successful. In September, a total of 32 small schools out of 3,100 primary schools State-wide are due to lose a teaching post. That is regrettable to me, as it is to every Deputy, but it is nowhere the number predicted by the INTO, which predicted 22 posts to be lost in Clare alone, when there were 32 lost in total. There is one school in Clare that will lose a post, and another might lose a post depending on the numbers that enrol in September as opposed to the forecast enrolment.

I oppose two sections of the Bill in particular. Section 4 proposes an amendment to section 12 of the 1998 Act, that the Minister shall not, where a school meets the requirements for recognition under this Act and could otherwise continue operating, cause a school to cease functioning as a school by reducing its funding. Every national school in Ireland, regardless of size, receives a capitation grant in respect of 20 pupils, even if the enrolment is four pupils or eight pupils. If enrolment is 59 pupils, it receives a capitation grant for 60 pupils.

In The Irish Times in November, there was a report of a tiny valley school, much like some of the schools this Bill aims to protect, on the main Cork to Killarney road that had received no pupils in September and was finally closed yesterday, allowing its principal to be transferred. There were no pupils in the school. Of course it is possible to pay a capitation grant in respect of 60 pupils for a school with no pupils, pay a caretaker and insurance, lighting and heating, but these are difficult times. Even after the bank deal, which has been welcomed by both Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil, our deficit remains at about €14 billion; savings must be made. Of course we would wish savings would not have to be made in respect of education, but it does not make sense to keep open, heated and staffed a school with no pupils when those funds could be used elsewhere in the education system.

There is a proposal that no teacher would teach more than four curriculum grades. That means a brother and sister attending the same school might require two teachers. If there were only two pupils in the school with perhaps five years between them, under this proposal, two teachers would be required to teach them. The State does not have the funds to do that at this time.

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