Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I am grateful to Senator Ó Domhnaill for sharing time. People may wonder why a Cork-based Senator would be interested in this item but my father comes from the Athphort area of Árainn Mhór and he attended this school until he finished his education at 13 years of age. On those grounds and because of the numerous telephone calls I have received from my extended family on the island, I support Senator Ó Domhnaill's call on the Minister and the Department to maintain this as a two teacher school, as all such schools should be. We should recognise Árainn Mhór as one of our more populous islands. It is a place to which emigrants have increasingly returned in recent decades, so to cut a teacher would give all the wrong indications for the future development of the island.

While I may be factually incorrect about this, I think that when the school opened in 1915, one of the teachers on the island was the great writer and social commentator Peadar O'Donnell. We should keep sight of the social and historical consequences of the decisions we make concerning such schools. Despite the appeals process, there is a good case for the Department to take a more appropriate decision on defending a two teacher school at Athphort on Árainn Mhór.