More than 350 parents and teachers vented their frustration at overcrowding in primary schools at a special meeting aimed at ending the practice in Donegal town on Monday night.

The overflowed attendance at the Central Hotel overwhelmingly backed a campaign spearheaded by the Irish National Teachers Organisation and aimed at stepping up pressure on the government to reduce class sizes.

Downings native John Carr, General Secretary of the INTO, told the crowd gathered from all over the Donegal South West constituency that the figures spoke for themselves, that Donegal was particularly badly affected by government failure to implement its own policy.

He said that 82 per cent of the schools in the county have a greater pupil/teacher ratio than that promised by the government.

He pointed out that a commitment was made by the government to have 20 or fewer pupils in classes for all children younger than nine years of age.
Speaker after speaker denounced the failures, and several told of classes of up to 35 children in south Donegal schools. Many spoke of “broken promises” by the government.

TD Dinny McGinley and general election candidates Pearse Doherty and Seamus Rogers heard one mother of three young boys seethe with anger when she criticised a five-year plan to bring down class sizes.

The woman, who didn’t give her name, said: “Five years is no good to my five-year-old boy. And knowing how slowly bureaucracy really works it’s no use to my five-month-old son either.”

A group of parents from St Peter’s National School in Mountcharles said the average class size there was 38 and rising. There were more than 30 pupils in junior infants. The parents demanded immediate action to remedy the situation.

Ministers Mary Coughlan and Pat the Cope Gallagher, who are in US representing the government in St Patrick’s week festivities and business talks, sent their apologies for inability to attend the meeting, one of a series being organised around the country by the INTO.

The Donegal meeting pledged to continually demand action by their TDs and to persuade others to also step up the pressure in the campaign which has the theme, is your child crowded out?