Sacrificing education to pay off gambling debts

THE people of Kerry should stand shoulder to shoulder with the parents and staff of Lispole and Fybough national schools who are mounting a brave campaign against government cuts which will likely see them lose one teacher each in September.

We all recognise the need for cuts to government spending in these straitened times, but surely education is not the place to start.

If Kerry and Ireland as a whole is to have any hope of recovering from recession and regaining our economic sovereignty it is our young people who will be at the forefront of the effort.

Cutting education spending to bail out bankers and property developers is not only unfair and galling, it is short sighted in the extreme.

There are many areas of government spending which could, and indeed should, be cut before the axe is taken to the young and the vulnerable. In times like these education spending should not only be maintained, it should be increased.

These cuts also have a hugely disproportionate impact on rural areas. While the majority of schools in heavily populated urban areas will escape the cuts largely unscathed, rural schools, including many in Kerry, will see their teacher numbers slashed and class sizes increase.

Some schools in areas with a particularly small population may be forced to close altogether, yet another shattering blow to the sense of community in many of Kerry’s small towns and villages that has been hacked away bit by bit by successive governments.

Wwe should all support the parents, staff and most importantly the pupils of Lispole and Fybough schools. It is only when there is a mass movement of protest that change will come.

Today Fybough and Lispole are in jeopardy but who is to say where the axe will fall next. We owe it to these two communities, and to ourselves, to stand up and say enough is enough. That we will no longer tolerate cuts that harm our children’s well being simply to ensure the government can pay off its debts to a cadre of billionaire bankers.