On the Schedule, I beg to move:
To insert in the appropriate places under the words "In the County of Donegal" the words "Creenasmear, Creeslough, Rosguil, Termon."
I do not desire to repeat what I said on the Second Reading. I have put down as amendments to the Schedule the names of four areas at present excluded. They are, to my own knowledge, areas in which a very large number of poor people reside. The Creenasmear and Creeslough areas probably comprise the greater number of necessitous children. The Termon district lies in a comparatively well-to-do area, but it is a little, mountainy district where the farms are very small, where the crops ripen very late, and where one has great evidence of poverty. The same remark applies to the district of Rosguil. It is a wild district, jutting out into the Atlantic, and it is possibly familiar—familiar in the distance—to the visitors to the Rosapenna Hotel. It is a district populated mostly by very small farmers and fishermen. It is as wild a district as probably would be found in any part of the Gaeltacht. Deputies who have looked at the map will have observed that this particular area is coloured green, unlike most of the district to which it geographically belongs. That indicates that the district is almost entirely Irish-speaking. I have listened and weighed the arguments which the Minister adduced against any extension of the area as settled in the Bill. I quite realise that his views are shared by a great many people who have more practical knowledge as members of county councils of the probable working of the Act than I have. Therefore, I do not want to press my views unduly.
I regard this, as I have said before, merely as the first stage in the extension of the principle of looking after necessitous school children in rural areas. The first step was taken a great many years ago. I am glad to say that I had something to do with it in another place. I was in charge of a Private Member's Bill which was ultimately carried. The purpose of that Bill was to make it possible to feed necessitous school children in our towns. We have now gone a step further. We will have to go even further still. It is for the Minister to consider whether, in the circumstances, the small additions I suggest in my own county are additions which might not meet with his favourable consideration.