asked the Minister for Education if she will clarify her proposal made in 3.14 of the Programme for Action in Education, to consider the amalgamation of small urban national schools; if she will indicate the maximum size of school which would be considered appropriate for amalgamation; and if she will assure the House that schools of four teachers or more would not be considered appropriate for amalgamation.

It would be necessary that educational and economic factors as well as population trends be considered in relation to the amalgamation or reorganisation of national schools in urban areas and each case would have to be examined on its merits. Accordingly it would not be practical to set down limits on the sizes of schools which could be considered in the context of the proposals in the Programme for Action in Education. However, I can assure the Deputy that full consultation on all proposals would take place with the interests concerned before decisions were made in relation to them.

There may be some constraints on the Minister in regard to decisions like this and that each case would be taken on its merits, but I am sure that in making her proposal the Minister considered information on the effects of this. I hope she can give an assurance that schools of four teachers or more will not be considered appropriate for amalgamation. I am sure that has been considered by the Department. There may be a number of schools with fewer than four teachers which would require amalgamation, but has the Minister considered schools of four teachers or more?

I should like to be helpful to the Deputy because I appreciate that he wishes to be helpful to those schools. It would be unnecessarily restrictive on school managements and the Department to have to make a hard and fast rule about four-teacher schools. There might be educational and economic advantages in amalgamating two, three, four or five teacher schools that are reasonably adjacent. For instance, you could have large schools for boys or girls in which the numbers were reduced to the extent that neither schools had a teacher per class or the benefit of a working principal. There might be cases, for example in Ballyfermot where the Dominican Sisters operated five primary schools which were reorganised into three schools in 1979 with between nine and 12 teachers per school at the time of the reorganisation. The Deputy can be assured that there will not be decisions made without full consultation, taking into account the educational advantages of amalgamation. I could not give a definite statement on the number of teachers.