Before Senator Mooney starts I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the new Minister for Education, Deputy Davern, and wish him every good luck in his new post.
Adjournment Matter. - Drumshanbo (County Leitrim) School.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
It is a singular honour for this House and for me personally that the Minister for Education, Deputy Noel Davern, has graced the Chamber on this his first occasion as our new Minister. May I echo the sentiments expressed by the Chair, not only on our behalf but on behalf of all Members of this House, in wishing him well in his new brief and say that it is a long overdue recognition of his undoubted talents.
I am especially grateful because the issue I have raised on the Adjournment this evening centres around a problem which, sadly, is an ever growing one. It is not simply a matter of teachers being replaced or being taken off the staff roll, but it is indicative of the demographic trends which increasingly show that major shifts are taking place throughout our rural communities, especially in the west of Ireland and specifically in Drumshanbo, County Leitrim, which this motion addresses.
Very briefly, the background to my motion is that in the last 12 months the school population of the central school in Drumshanbo has declined. As a result one of the teachers on that school roll has been put on the diocesan panel. This teacher was informed by the board of management during the summer, as a result of a communication from the Department of Education, that she should not be appointed to a teaching position for the new terms as it was likely that she would be appointed to another position in another location. As a result of this directive the teacher was assigned to other duties within the school; but inevitably, as happens in all rural communities, she was visible in the school and was involved in teaching duties. In the last two weeks she has left the school and has been placed on the diocesan panel, much to the disappointment, if one could use that phrase, not only of the pupils and teaching staff but of the parents.
It is as a result of this action that I, in my capacity as both a member of Leitrim County Council and as a Member of Seanad Éireann, have received substantial numbers of representations from concerned parents in my area who cannot understand that a teacher would be, so suddenly as they preceive it, removed from a teaching post in her home town out of the school and out of the area to the detriment of the remaining children.
However, that is only half the story. As a result of this continuing decline — and I am sure the Minister will be outlining the facts in greater detail — another teacher looks likely to be placed on the diocesan panel at the end of the current school year. That means that in a small area two of our best teachers — without casting any reflection whatsoever on the others indeed, they are all excellent teachers — will have been removed from the school and will be teaching outside the area. Both individuals — the young lady who has left and the gentleman who is now threatened with departure — have been heavily involved in extra curricular activities in the Drumshanbo area. In the case of the lady teacher, she is an exceptionally gifted young lady and not only renowned for her teaching talents but also for her musical gifts. She has been responsible for setting up and maintaining school choirs in the area — the resumption of such after a lapse of several decades — and is widely renowned outside her own area.
In the case of the gentleman who is shortly to be threatened with moving on to the panel, he is heavily involved in the GAA, both at local and county levels, specifically encouraging and coaching under-age children. The Minister, coming from a rural area, County Tipperary, will, I am sure, recognise the symptoms. I wish that both of us could have a solution that would be acceptable. I understand it is the system, but it does not make it any more palatable.
I feel that I should put on record, if not a short term solution at least an analysis of current policy, and that the Department might adopt a more flexible policy in rural areas where population decline is now getting out of control. If you pursue Department policy as currently laid down to its logical conclusion, then entire communities will become educationally extinct. The primary school will follow the railway, the post office, the Garda station and local services such as the watchmaker, the baker, the shoemaker, the carpenter — in fact, the end of a heretofore identifiable and viable community.
It is universally accepted that class sizes are too large. In that context I commend the Government in their determination to reduce the pupil/teacher ratio but surely the area from which I come deserves better. The west of Ireland has many natural disadvantages, yet traditionally the overwhelming desire has been for more and better educated citizens. Indeed, in my own county of Leitrim, along with, I think, Donegal and Kerry, they have the highest per capita entry into third level education.
Why then should we suffer because successive Governments since the foundation of the State have for one reason or another failed to stimulate the local economy? This is what is happening. In Drumshanbo since 1986 we have lost over 200 industrial manufacturing jobs in an area which would be nationally perceived as a rural area, not an industrial heartland. A shoe factory employing 100 is gone; a coal mine employing 200, of which 25 per cent came from the immediate Drumshanbo area is gone; Laird's jam factory, nationally and internationally known and which at its peak employed over 90 male and female employees, is gone. Now our central school, the jewel of our community, is on the slippery slope to eventual extinction.
I refuse to accept that any Minister in this Government would knowingly and consciously condone such a policy, and I do not believe they do. I believe that the system is there and has to be worked, that there must be some order. I accept that, but I would respectfully request that the Minister look at the overall policy for rural schools in the context of what is happening around the country. It is no longer acceptable to hide behind a system that has existed with minimal change for over 40 years.
The panel system has worked well and, as I said, we must have some order. But demographic trends, as I said at the outset of my address, strongly indicate that there is a continuing population shift. Communities are no longer as secure or as confident as they used to be. This is because of economic changes, changes in economic emphasis. One has only to look at the east coast and see the gradual but perceptible move towards more and more people living on the east coast rather than on the west. I am only a small voice calling attention to a very large problem and, in the major debate about education in general, seeking the possibility that perhaps there could be a reappraisal.
The system as it currently works means that if numbers decline in a school that school loses its staff. I have already attempted to suggest that there is a continuing shift and that this is now moving much more perceptibly than heretofore. Because the world has got much smaller, people are more inclined to travel, whereas before they tended to stay in their own communities.
Agriculture is the backbone of our economy and the area I come from was traditionally agricultural in that most of the income was derived from people who worked on the land — bad as it was — and supplemented it by part-time off-farm employment.
What I believe will happen in Drumshanbo — and all the Drumshanbos of Ireland — is that, unless there is an improvement in the economic situation, on the jobs front and on the industrial front, we will be left with a professional or quasi-professional yuppy generation, the people who can afford to stay because those who cannot will leave, and take their children with them — our future generations.
I did not expect the Minister to come into the House tonight and give me an answer to the problems of Drumshanbo. But because of the difficulties my community are facing, and in particular because of the loss from the Central school of two brilliant teachers, who have been making and continue to make a major contribution to the development and well being of the community, I could not let the occasion pass without at least shouting a protest, if not — to paraphrase John Healy — shouting stop. Perhaps this contribution and the Minister's fresh thinking in the Department of Education might lead to a reappraisal of the system and we could at least stabilise the communities in which we live rather than looking over our shoulder and asking how many more teachers will be gone next year; how many fewer children will be going to our schools next year; how long more will our community exist?
I start off a Leas-Chathaoirleach, by saying a very sincere thank you to you and Senator Mooney for welcoming me to the House.
The staffing of a national school is determined by the enrolment in the school on 30 September of the previous year. This is in accordance with the agreement on staffing made between the Government and the INTO under the Programme for National Recovery. In the case of Drumshambo central national school the enrolment of 250 pupils on 30 September 1990, warrants a staff of a principal plus seven assistants for the 1991-92 school year. The school will also have the service of a full-time remedial teacher.
The post of the eighth assistant was discontinued with effect from 31 August 1991. The most junior assistant in the school was given the option of having her name placed on the diocesan panel for redeployment to another national school in the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise from 1 September 1991. The post of the eighth assistant was discontinued due to falling enrolments, the school having required an enrolment of at least 267 on 30 September 1990, in order to retain the post for the 1991-92 school year.
This teacher opted to have her name placed on the panel and was included on the panel list issued to the diocesan education secretary in April 1991. She was available for redeployment to any national school in the diocese where a vacancy arose with effect from 1 September 1991. Under the panel regulations a teacher who has his/her name placed on the panel will continue to serve in their own school after 1 September in a supernumerary capacity until they receive an offer of a post in another school in the diocese which they are obliged to accept. A teacher may refuse a post if the distance between his/her school and the school offering a post is in excess of 45 kilometers. The teacher in question was offered a post at St. Emer's national school in Templemichael, County Longford and, having accepted the offer, took up duty there on 4 November 1991.
The regulations governing the operation of the panel were notified to the boards of management by means of circular 15/91 in March 1991. I can give a copy to the Senator later. The chairperson of the board of management was requested by letter dated 14 June 1991, to ensure that the teacher was not assigned a class in September 1991 as this could lead to disruption when she eventually was redeployed to another school. It was suggested as an alternative arrangement the teacher should be used as a resource teacher to assist with individual pupils or groups of pupils or to support other class teachers.
The Department have received no communication from the board of management regarding the retention of the post of the eighth assistant. It appears that the school is not in breach of the guidelines on maximum class sizes as laid down in circular 23/88. That circular set out the following maximum class sizes guidelines: 39 in the case of a single class group; 38 in the case of a class group with two consecutive grades; and 35 in the case of a multigrade class group. I would like to say to Senator Mooney that I have every sympathy with the case he is making. I am well aware that the depopulation of rural areas has caused hardship there. If I can find any flexibility in the Department to deal with that, not just for Drumshanbo but for many other rural areas — with crtain cash backing, of course — we will find it and see what we can do. Be assured of a sympathetic hearing on it.
May I very briefly thank the Minister for his detailed reply. It is what I would have expected from a man of his experience. I was particularly gratified by his closing remarks because this confirms the confidence that all of us have in his ability to understand the difficulties facing people in rural areas. Once again I thank him most sincerely for his presence here in the House and wish him well.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.15 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 21 November 1991.