Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for taking this debate. The issue is about St. Thomas's special school in Clonshaugh. It is a small school, with a small enrolment, and a school that nobody really believes has a future, although that is not the issue at question here. It is a school where, through circumstance, all the pupils enrolled are Traveller boys. A decision was reached recently and communicated to the patron of the school that it is to close with immediate effect in June, not to be phased out over a number of years.

I do not believe in segregated education and do not think many people do. I do not believe boys should be separated from girls. I do not believe children of different religions should be separated from each other in schools. I do not believe children from families with financial advantage should be separated from children from families without that financial advantage and I certainly do not believe that Travellers should be educated separately from other children. However, there is a way of changing that.

If this school is to close, and the principal, the staff and the school community appreciate the need for that to happen, then it should be done in a compassionate manner. There is a handful of young men in the senior cycle of the school, or approaching the senior cycle, who would be severely affected by this closure. I do not know if the Minister of State can remember when he was 16 but I remember when I was 16. If we had been told we had to leave the school we were in to go to another school, it would have been pretty difficult for us to do that, and we are not members of a much-discriminated against minority. We are also not members of a minority that has a tradition of having difficulty in progressing in mainstream, formal education.

The issue here is that there are a number of young men who do not really see themselves staying in education if this rug is pulled from under them. The issue in St. Thomas's is not that the school should not close; I think everybody believes it should close. The issue is that it should be done with compassion and understanding for the young men who it will affect most profoundly, namely, the young men in fifth year and in third year. I could understand if the school was told not to take any more students in September. I could also understand if the Department said it would do this over the course of a year or two years, particularly for those young men who will face the leaving certificate next year. Despite the best will in the world, what will happen as a result of this situation is that young men who were going to do their leaving certificate in a year or two years will now not do it. Understanding that the school has to close, what I need to know from the Minister of State is that it can be done over two years to allow these young men to continue in their education in St. Thomas's and to allow a calm and compassionate transition for other students to other educational facilities.

We are not asking for the world. We are not asking to reverse the decision. We are just asking that the decision be phased, rather than immediate. For a school to be told in April that it is to close in June is, I would contest, very unusual. I do not think a school of a different character would get a message in April that it is closing in June for good. That is the message from the school community. These are vulnerable young people, they are in mainstream education and they are doing their best. I would ask that the Department would give them that small bit of leeway, not to close the doors of the school overnight, but to do it over a more prolonged period.