Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming before the House to take this Commencement matter. I did receive notification that the payment was in process in the case of the particular school on which I submitted a query regarding the minor works grant.I very much welcome it, but it raises the wider question of the desperate financial dire straits in which many small rural schools find themselves. Bangor Erris, the school that is the subject of the notice we submitted, is typical of most rural schools. There is little point in issuing IT grants, for example, if the school cannot be kept running day-to-day. The minor works grant should be mandatory and not dependent on the money left over at the end of the calendar year. This principal, like many others, was depending on the grant arriving in November. She feared that the school would not survive financially until January, when the first money of the capitation grant is due to arrive, unless the school went into an overdraft position. She feels that she could not do this as she relies on fundraising as it stands.

Bangor Erris is typical of many small rural schools. It is parents and the people of the area who are effectively keeping the school solvent. The capital review 2016 to 2020 states in relation to minor works grants to primary schools that it is not possible to maintain school infrastructure without the payment of the minor works grant and an annual summer works scheme grant.

This principal, like others, is heading into December waiting for this payment, but the school still has to pay the cleaner, the secretary, the electricity, the fire alarm service bill, the oil, the refuse bins, the photocopier, the security alarm service and monitoring, and the rising cost of school insurance without basic financial support. This principal also cites France where the local council looks after all of these basic commodities and services for smaller schools. Forcing a small school principal to source and maintain these services is effectively asking him or her to be a teacher, a principal and an accountant, and to be a contractor. There is a feeling among principals of smaller rural schools that the larger the school, the more money that is available to support it. I know the larger schools have their financial challenges as well, but how does it make sense to give a teaching principal, with 26 pupils of four different class levels in the one classroom, 15 administrative days to do his or her work but give a principal with over seven colleagues and support posts a total of 183 administrative days? It does not tally up. Does the Government have a strategy for helping smaller schools, often with teaching principals, who are currently facing severe financial pressure and rising administrative burdens?

There is a feeling that the smaller the school and the more isolated it is in the area, the more financial constraints it is under. More and more of these schools are trying to teach multiple classes across multiple disciplines. Primary school is hugely important for the education cycle of a child. If the schools continue to be starved of resources, it puts families under because they cannot afford to continually pay into what is supposed to be a free education system. It also puts teachers under pressure as they try to do their jobs and maintain everything that goes on in a school, dealing with home challenges and everything else, and try to teach children of different abilities. Having to worry about whether they can pay the bills or not is not acceptable.