Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I put on record my support for small rural schools. As a rural Deputy, like most of my colleagues I understand the importance of rural schools as well as other facilities such as post offices and churches. Schools are an important part of the fabric of rural areas. The parish structure is important and must be maintained in the future.

I welcome the debate because, as my colleague, Deputy Buttimer, indicated, there must be a full examination of the education system. Some schools are not sustainable and there must be a rebalancing of the system. In my local school in Carlow my son is in a class of 27 children. That is not fair as he will not get the same quality of education as someone in a small rural school with a class of six or seven. The system must be reassessed and rebalanced in order to ensure equality. The discussion must be focused and rather than engaging in cheap point-scoring everyone must feed into the debate to ensure it is balanced.

I wish to refer to the amount of scaremongering that has been going on about small rural schools. Deputy 'Ming' Flanagan is to be commended on bringing the Bill to the House but he and others have travelled around the country creating hysteria about the total closure of small schools in rural areas and the closing down of rural Ireland. Strong and emotive language has been used in the process. They have created a problem by using schoolchildren to fuel the emotion. It is wrong to use schoolchildren to write postcards to their local representatives saying "Please TD don't close my school. Please TD, I want to go to the same school as my mammy and daddy did in the past. Please TD, leave the door of my school open." It is wrong to use children to do that. I see nothing wrong with parents, parents' councils or representative bodies lobbying strongly in order to maintain a school. It is important that they would do so but it is not right for teachers to get children to make postcards. Whoever organised the campaign should put their time to better use in order to achieve their end.

In my constituency because a meeting was held in the area a local small school believed that it was under threat but although that was not the case a campaign was organised. The school has two teachers and 52 pupils and was in no danger whatsoever. However, the expectation was created that the door of the school would close next September. This situation, which has been developing over a period, must be addressed.

We heard much talk earlier in the year about the total destruction of rural Ireland and the closure of schools all over the place. That has not happened. As a result of the appeals process there will not be a total closure of rural Ireland. Unfortunately, some teachers will be lost to schools but only 32 schools will be affected. Only 1% of the 3,100 schools in the country will lose a teacher in the coming year. The appeal process is not complete. I echo other speakers in encouraging the Department to be flexible with the appeal process. Come next October when it will be looked at again I encourage the Department to be flexible.

The issue has not arisen in the past six months. In the Celtic tiger years we saw welcome investment in schools in all constituencies. Between 2000 and 2011 a total of 52 schools around the country closed. That was when we were supposed to have plenty of money to keep them open. School closures are not a new phenomenon. I welcome the debate. I accept there are issues of concern but we must have a constructive debate.

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