Minister Quinn’s turnaround on small schools an election gimmick – priest

Small, rural schools “under a shadow of doubt about their very existence”.

A Donegal priest who has been campaigning to protect small, rural schools has called on the Minister of Education to take action on “destructive and detrimental” policies to the primary school sector, in order for his recent comments to be taken as more than an “election gimmick”.

Fr John Joe Duffy of Stranorlar, who together with the Church of Ireland’s Rev. John Deane of Ardara, has led a campaign since 2012 to highlight the pressures on small schools in the face of austerity cuts, said Minister Quinn has for too long “left rural schools, small schools and faith minority schools under a shadow of doubt about their very existence”.

Fr Duffys described Minister Quinn’s comments on Clare FM as a “conversion on the road to Damascus”, when he admitted that there is “a difficulty around isolated communities that need to have a school if that community is to survive”. Minister Quinn said: “It's not a black and white issue where you have big schools and small schools…We need to have that discussion school by school so to speak."

Halt

In reaction to these comments Fr Duffy has called for “an immediate halt to any prospective closures, a reversal of the plethora of cuts that adversely affected small schools and for [Minister Quinn] to immediately guarantee their future”.

Fr Duffy said only when the Minister elaborates on his comments in this context would he believe his sincerity, because “an announcement of this nature six days from polling day could be seen as an election gimmick”.

Fianna Fáil’s Education Spokesperson Charlie McConalogue said it was “remarkable that after three years of slashing resources for small schools in what I believe to be a concerted effort to force the amalgamation of some, Minister Quinn appears to have woken up to the value of small schools to local communities”.

Last year a Department of Education study on the future of primary schools recommended that schools with less than four teachers or less than 80 pupils be closed as a cost-cutting measure.