Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree entirely with the Deputy's final point. The issues that present themselves in our primary schools are much more complex than they used to be. Teachers are aware of that.

Continuous professional development training is important, as is equipping them with the skills and capacity to deal with these emerging issues. I see a lot of schools acting as support for one another, which involves schools principals meeting informally. More than ever, teachers and principals are rising to the challenge.

The Deputy mentioned island schools, which are really important. We introduced a policy measure that will retain the two-teacher provision for island schools irrespective of a decrease in the numbers. There are 26 one-teacher schools, 537 two-teacher schools, and 376 three-teacher schools in the country. In 2018 and 2019, the number of schools in the one, two, three and four-teacher category is 1,367, which is 44% of the total number of schools, which is 3,100.

See this speech in context