Kerry protest as 100 schools risk losing teachers

ABOUT 100 schools in Kerry could lose teachers because of changes in the pupil-teacher ratio, it was claimed yesterday.

Upwards of 20 parents and teachers from some affected schools attended yesterday’s meeting of Kerry County Council to highlight their concerns and win support for their opposition to the cuts.

Parents of children attending two schools in the Dingle Peninsula — Fybough and Lispole — which are each due to lose a teacher, were among the protesters.

Members of all parties and Independents pledged their support and called on Kerry’s six TDs, including Arts Minister Jimmy Deenihan, to work together in a bid to have the cuts reversed.

Three motions in the names of councillors Seamus Cosai Fitzgerald and Matt Griffin, both Fine Gael, and Michael O’Shea, Fianna Fáil, were passed unanimously.

Mr O’Shea said current policies would “kill off” the vast majority of small rural schools.

“About 100 schools in the county will be affected by these changes in the next three years,” he claimed. “It will cause mayhem in rural Ireland.”

Retired teacher Michael Gleeson, of the South Kerry Independent Alliance, said a hard campaign by parents and the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), decades ago, had brought a reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio.

However, it was now like “the clock being rewound again” and a return to the days of large classes, in which children with particular needs would be the biggest victims, said Mr Gleeson.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Paul O’Donoghue described the cuts as an attack on rural communities.