I do not want to begin until there is somebody on the Front Bench opposite.
Adjournment Debate. - Kiltyclogher (Leitrim) Vocational School.
I am sure the Minister will be here in a moment.
On Thursday the 22nd November, 1973, I asked the Minister for Education:
if, in refusing to re-open Kiltyclogher Vocational School, County Leitrim, he has given due consideration to the national and social aspects of the matter.
The Minister's reply was to the effect that he had given due consideration to all matters pertaining to the reopening of the school but that the education of the children was his first consideration and on that basis he declined to re-open the school.
I unfortunately was not present, like many other Deputies on that particular day. If I had been I would have asked the Minister a number of questions. I am grateful to you, Sir, for giving me this opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment so that the Minister may elucidate what he has been saying all along and so that I may make a few points which I hope will lead to a reconsideration of the whole sordid question of the refusal to re-open Kiltyclogher school.
Kiltyclogher is a neat little village on the shores of Lough Melvin with a small community who are rather proud of their location and striving by organised community effort to make the most of what they have. They are able to attract, in normal times, a number of tourists particularly anglers. They have been reasonably successful in maintaining the pride which any small village should have in its locality. The gem of their setting on this beautiful location was their technical school built in comparatively recent years. It was not merely an excellent school but also a social centre for all community meetings and effort and it was used for adult education.
They suffer from a few serious handicaps in their efforts to maintain a happy community there. They are rather close to the Border and they are in County Leitrim which is one of the counties about which we have all been talking which should be on a priority list for specialised treatment in the context of what the west of Ireland should have in relation to its declining population and its problem of decentralisation and distance from the hub of things. Leitrim is the one county in Ireland where at the last census the death rate exceeded the birth rate. The normal increase in population which was evident in every other county was missing in Leitrim. This accentuated what we already knew to be the tremendous social problem from which this county suffers.
The one gem in this setting was their community centre and vocational school. The school suffered the unfortunate fate of being not totally destroyed but left unfit for use as a school for the time being by a bomb. They set about making their claim for malicious damages. The damage has been assessed and compensation will be payable.
In the meantime they are deprived of the use of a school and community centre and they are left with an eyesore. They are frustrated. They have a very active community organisation, they have entered for the Tidy Towns Competition next year, they are organising a festival and doing all the things that an active community, led by their local clergy, would like to do in order to enhance the happy relations which exist in a town which is very close to the Border.
The Minister has decided that the school will not be reopened and has ordained that the children must go to Manorhamilton where, he said, better education facilities are available. This is where I take issue with the Minister. There are considerations which far outweigh any considerations of better facilities. I know they have language laboratories in Manorhamilton, they have science courses and facilities perhaps for a more comprehensive curriculum than would be possible in Kiltyclogher. However, Kiltyclogher had 140 pupils and an excellent teaching staff and the results in the leaving and intermediate certificate examinations over the years, and particularly last year, compared favourably with any school of its type in Ireland. That immediately refutes the Minister's assertion that the children would benefit by attending the larger comprehensive school in Manorhamilton.
I am not seeking to score political points here but the people are seriously frustrated. They want their school and centre back and they are entitled to malicious damages compensation which will restore the school. They would like to have the school restored and work to be commenced on it immediately. They do not see why the Minister cannot accede to their modest request in the special circumstances attaching to Kiltyclogher—its setting in County Leitrim and its need as a village close to the Border to keep a community close knit. In fact, pupils from the other side of the border attended the school.
If we are trying to show co-operation with the people in the Six Counties there are two fields in which there is unlimited scope for co-operation and one of those is education, where by schools in Border areas can be used for pupils from both sides of the Border. It would be difficult to find a better means than that of bringing the communities together. This aspect of the issue is of particular importance in the present circumstances. I used the word "national" in my question to emphasise the national implications of the matter in so far as we should endeavour to leave in existence the various schools along the Border so that the people looking in from the other side will not be able to say that in a declining population we are prepared to close schools. The school at Kiltyclogher was the focal point in that area of a declining population and it has had extensive achievements in the vocational field down through the years. To close it was a crime against the community of the area.
The Department may say that it is their policy to transfer pupils to the largest schools possible and that explanation might be accepted by the people of Kiltyclogher if they were aware of there being no deviation from that principle. However, there have been some notable exceptions in this regard in recent times. The building of a school at Killybegs was discontinued on the advice of the Department because there was a larger school in the neighbouring village of Carrick which was capable of catering for children up to leaving certificate standard. At the time I made the strongest representations possible to the former Minister in respect of Killybegs pointing out that it would not be to the detriment of Carrick school to build this other school. It has now been decided to provide education up to intermediate certificate standard at Killybegs while the final years can be completed at Carrick. In view of the situation in that area where there is an increasing population I am convinced that time will prove that both schools are necessary.
It has been said that the previous Minister operated the same policy as is being operated now and that ultimately it would have been Deputy Faulkner's intention to amalgamate Kiltyclogher vocational school with the school at Manorhamilton. I do not know to what extent that may be true but if any such steps had been taken in this direction by the previous Minister I, as a member of the then Government, would have registered strongly my disapproval of the children at Kiltyclogher being transferred to Manorhamilton. I might add that the school at Manorhamilton is an excellent one capable of accommodating as many of 500 pupils but which, within a short time, will probably be found incapable of accommodating all the children who may wish to study there, not to mention the 140 pupils of Kiltyclogher. The decision to close Kiltyclogher school was a very unfortunate one. There is no point in putting forward the excuse that it is the Department's policy to amalgamate schools when the schools at Dún Chaoin and Killybegs could be opened at the stroke of a pen. The historic village of Kiltyclogher, which was the birthplace of Seán McDermott, has one of the most down-trodden communities in the country but it is an active community.
I appeal to the Minister not to endeavour to justify his action on the grounds of financial consideration or in the interests of better educational facilities. Such arguments are hollow and will not be accepted by the community of Kiltyclogher. I appeal to the Minister to review the whole situation and to arrange for the vocational education committee to carry out the necessary repair work on the school so that it may be re-opened at the earliest date possible.
I am not endeavouring to dramatise the situation. Every child and adult in Kiltyclogher will tell of his sense of loss at the closing of what was the village's centre of activity. The people there regard themselves as having been sadly neglected and are under the impression that their public representatives are not doing enough for them. If the Minister weighs all the factors in this case I believe he will reach the conclusion that to re-open the school is the right course of action. It has not been proved yet that the larger school is superior in value to the small community school because in the small school there is a close relationship between all concerned. Individual attention can be given to the pupils and in many cases the teachers take pride not only in the achievements of the pupils but in the community as a whole. Therefore, there is much to be said for the small school. The closing of the school in any village represents a big loss to the community concerned but this is particularly true in a county such as Leitrim. The people there are prepared to fight in order to retain what they have. The area in question is still part of my constituency but if the piece of political surgery now before the House is enacted I will not represent that area in the future. Therefore, I can hardly be accused of raising this issue in an effort to curry favour with the people of Kiltyclogher. I have a personal interest in this case. Having attended meetings in connection with it I witnessed the sense of frustration and loss that is being experienced by the people because of the closure of their school. They are not prepared to believe that the school will be re-opened.
In these circumstances I appeal again to the Minister to consider the many factors involved, particularly the social issues. This school has provided the best possible education in the past. The results achieved are ample evidence of this. I ask the Minister not to allow some local pressure to develop in this case as was the situation in other cases. The people concerned have no wish to take action of a militant nature or of the kind that may have proved successful in other areas but they expect us to meet their reasonable demands.
Deputy Brennan must remember that the previous Government in 1967, in which he was collectively responsible with the Minister for Education at that time, had a policy in relation to Kiltyclogher. The policy of the Department of Education in that respect was settled as far back as then by a Fianna Fáil Minister for Education and I should like to quote from a document circulated to all County Leitrim educational interests at that time. It is entitled "The Projected Organisation for Post-Primary Education". Under the heading "Kiltyclogher" it states:
This centre has not got the potential for development to ease pressure on existing facilities in Manorhamilton. It might be retained as junior school for the present but in the longer term it should be closed and the area served by transport to Manorhamilton.
That was the policy of the previous Government and they were working towards that objective. Then, a very regrettable eventuality occurred. The school was the subject of a bomb attack and rendered unusable.
In these circumstances, the question facing the Minister was whether to attempt to provide a completely new school to replace the school which it was agreed would be closed anyway within a reasonable time. This had been agreed by the present Minister's predecessor. The alternative was to spend a very substantial sum of money on building a new school there. It is fair to say that the Minister took the right decision. It would have been a serious misuse of public money to have embarked on such a project.
Deputy Brennan raised this matter tonight apparently because the Minister had given an inadequate reply to the question he had put down. Deputy Brennan was not here for that reply to raise the matter as he could have done then. That is his affair. The Minister gave a precise answer to the question and the Deputy has no ground for complaint in regard to the inadequacy of the reply. The Deputy made an inaccurate statement in relation to the number of children in Kiltyclogher. He stated there were 140 children in the school. In fact, in the 1972-73 academic year there were only 117 children in the school. I should also put on record that the children are being asked to travel a mere eight miles to the Manorhamilton school. This is not an inordinate difficulty considering that very adequate transport facilities are available to bring the children to Manorhamilton, which is also a Leitrim school.
The Deputy referred to the question of there being a considerable cross-Border attendance at the Kiltyclogher school. I am informed that though there was some such attendance it was not a very substantial number and the Department had not received representations from the other side of the Border expressing concern at losing the services at Kiltyclogher.
As the Minister said, his primary consideration was the educational interests of the pupils concerned and the decision he faced for 1972-73 related to a choice between two types of education for the children concerned. What was proposed if Kiltyclogher were to be reopened was merely to provide two mobile classrooms and mobile toilet accommodation for the boys and girls. That is all they were to have in September last if the Minister had decided to re-open Kiltyclogher school—that was all that could be provided in the short time available.
Members of the House can make up their minds on the adequacy of the education at post-primary level which could be available in a school of that size and can compare it with the following facilities in Manorhamilton: 14 general classrooms, one specialised geography room—something the pupils never had in Kiltyclogher—one audio-typing room— something they never had in Kiltyclogher—one language room, two to three science rooms, two arts and crafts rooms, a library, a guidance suite, a general purposes area and a music suite. They are all facilities which were not available in the Kiltyclogher school before the bombing and which certainly would not have been available this term if the school had been reopened with mobile classrooms and toilets. Also in Manorhamilton there are outdoor facilities for physical education, and approval has been given for the building of a sports hall.
I think everybody is agreed that these facilities which are and will be available in Manorhamilton are of great benefit to the children from the Kiltyclogher area who, as I have said, have to travel only eight miles in a very adequate transport system.
It is fair to say that the future of Leitrim to a significant degree depends on the best quality education being made available to the children of the country, and when one compares the facilities which are and will be available in Manorhamilton with those which would have been available if the Minister had re-opened Kiltyclogher, one can see that a far better quality education will be available to those children. It is on the corner stone of that wide range of education that one can go forward with confidence to an improvement of the economic and social life of County Leitrim. On that basis the Minister's decision, a decision which had been made in principle by his predecessor, is eminently justifiable on national, social and educational grounds.
Would these considerations not apply in the case of the other schools I mentioned?
I can only tell the Deputy this decision was made in relation to the situation in Kiltyclogher and Manorhamilton and I think it has been demonstrated that the facilities in Manorhamilton are of such a nature that they do Leitrim proud.
It will be very hard to convince the people of Kiltyclogher that these things did not apply elsewhere where schools were retained.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 3.00 p.m. on Tuesday, 4th December, 1973.