asked the Minister for Education the plans his Department have for post-primary education in Achill, County Mayo.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Achill (Mayo) Post-primary Education.
19.
Mr. R. Burke
Discussions are still proceeding with the authorities concerned in regard to the appropriate provision to be made at both junior and senior cycle level for the pupils of the area. A final decision has not, so far, been reached in the matter.
Do I take it that the Minister has abandoned the idea of providing a community school for pupils in Achill?
Mr. R. Burke
I have not abandoned the idea. If the authorities involved will come to me with agreement on the matter, I will give them a community school immediately.
Is it not a fact that the Department of Education instructed people in the vocational school recently to continue with a junior cycle rather than the senior cycle which they have been running for years?
Mr. R. Burke
The Department of Education have asked the authorities involved to accept a community school. Such acceptance has not been forthcoming. The Department of Education have tried other methods of trying to bring about some rationalisation there. But if the authorities involved accept a community school, they will get it immediately.
Would the Minister not accept that Mayo Vocational Education Committee have been bending backwards to provide a community school in Achill and that the opposition has come not from the Vocational Education Committee but from the private school in the area? Would he not further agree that, rather than the private school being downgraded, it is now the vocational school that will be downgraded, in that it will not any longer be allowed——
The Deputy must keep his supplementaries brief.
This matter is very important to Mayo, and not only to Achill.
Then I must ask the Deputy to conclude.
Would the Minister not agree that the Mayo Vocational Education Committee have been instructed to drop the senior cycle course?
Mr. R. Burke
The question at issue here is whether, if a new vocational school is to be built, the facilities to be provided should include provision for a senior cycle course. The number of pupils to be provided for is 90. It does not seem to the Department of Education that expensive facilities for 90 pupils would be warranted in the area. I would hasten to add, too, that the private school the Deputy has mentioned—for clarification, and he would agree with this —is not run by a religious order.
Would the Minister agree that the information he is now giving to the House about 90 pupils being the number on rolls in the vocational school is not correct?
Mr. R. Burke
I did not say 90 was the number enrolled in the school; I said 90 was the number of pupils which would be available for a senior cycle course.