Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking a keen interest in this matter, but we deploy professional staff, including inspectors and others who have decades of experience, to support patrons, school managements and communities. One should not seek to politicise the solution because, from a departmental point of view, we are committed to providing the funding required. We stand ready to provide the teaching resources required, the capitation grant and all of the standard supports. Following the inspection report which set out a path to a solution, locally the patron-cum-management-cum-board has been unable to convince the parents to enrol their children. We stand ready to provide support packages to improve the quality of delivery in the school and the Department will not be found wanting in the provision of professional support and so on. We have long experience of doing so. Ultimately, however, there has to be a desire locally to make this work. We have to rebuild the parents' confidence at local level through the work of the school management supported by the professional staff we are making available to it. It is not a political scenario where someone goes in and bangs heads together. The parents will have to be content with it for a long period. They have to work with those taking responsibility and be convinced that it can work for them.

We absolutely stand by small schools. There is a commitment in the programme for Government not to close schools unless that is the desire locally. Parents have voted with their feet as to their view on this issue. We need to retrieve the position. I am putting in the professionals in my Department to work with the community to come up with an answer. We will continue to offer that support in order to find a solution which the Deputy is clearly keen to see.

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