Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that the Minister of State has the response from the Department and is reading it out, but it is just the same response that we got in October 2021 basically, which is just a sticking to the rigid bureaucratic rules of “these are the numbers, etc.” It is not taking into account the reason that they fell short was because of the pandemic. The school staff then took the decision to try to use some resources available to them to try to maintain the four junior infant classes that they started off with, which was honourable. What the Department continues, it seems, to say to them is that at this stage in the school year, it will force four classes into three and it will not allow them to have four classes next year. This is despite the fact that from September 2022 the numbers are clearly there in terms of the waiting list of 24 for junior infants. I have email after email from parents who are heartbroken because they are unable to get into the school starting in September because, precisely, the fourth teacher is not being provided. The principal wrote to the Minister, Deputy Foley, and I believe the Taoiseach as well, in relation to the rule that was decided, saying that while it is understood that rules must be fair and transparent, they were going through a very unpredictable and extraordinary time and so fairness needed to be reinterpreted. That is an absolutely reasonable position. They went on to explain that the school needed 254 pupils to retain the 14th teacher at the end of September 2021. We did not reach that number in September, but due in some part to the crisis in Ukraine, we now have 252 pupils. We appeal now for the extension of the schemes so we can keep the substitute teacher until the end of June.

This is very simple. We have lived through extraordinary times. All sorts of rules that have been in place have been bent and broken and so on. Simple asks are being appealed for here, that the teacher is retained for the rest of the year for the fourth class and that the resources are put in place so that the fourth class can be in place in September.

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