F/A: Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn TD
CC: An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD

Dear Minister,

I am writing to you in relation to the supposed planned changes to the pupil-teacher ratio as part of the upcoming budget.

While I fully appreciate the dire situation that we are in and the fact that a number of unsavoury decisions must be taken in the short term, I am writing to you to ensure that any changes, however unsavoury, are at least carried out in an equitable manner.

I am referring to the situation whereby the pupils of fee paying protestant secondary schools will once again bear the brunt of such a move. Many families have opted to educate their children in a school of a suitable ethos (ie Protestant), as is their right under the Constitution.

In many cases, this means that they have to attend a private secondary school, for which they have to pay fees, as there is only five non-fee paying protestant schools in Ireland.

If your Department proceeds with such alterations to the pupil-teacher ratio without exempting protestant schools, it will be the pupils of fee paying protestant secondary schools that will be discriminated against.

During the last Dail, as Labour Party spokesperson on Education you made a number of passionate contributions to the Dail when the then Minister Batt O’Keefe removed funding from fee paying protestant secondary schools as did a number of your counterparts in my own Fine Gael Party.

I would truly hope that a progressive and informed Minister such as yourself, if he his to push ahead with changing the pupil-teacher ratio, would at least exempt fee paying protestant secondary schools in the interests of equality.

Yours sincerely,

Neale