Even based on such erroneous information, it is a serious indictment of a senior Minister to suggest, as the Minister for Education and Science did in his letter to me of 28 February 2003, that the population of Longford will remain static until 2009. If the decision to close St. Joseph's secondary school is based solely on such unusual statistics, God help Longford. The other secondary schools in the county do not have the capacity to take an increase in students. Will the Minister allow the children of County Longford to be transported at all hours of the morning to secondary schools outside the county? This would impose a huge burden on their parents who would have to pay extra transport costs. Why is there not a coherent policy to keep children in schools in their own county, rather than travelling to schools 40 miles away?