Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister of State for standing in for the Minister, Deputy Foley, this evening. Three weeks ago, enrolment opened in Greystones for the 2024 secondary school intake. The three schools that opened their enrolments were St. David's Holy Faith Secondary School, Temple Carrig School and Greystones Community College. In five weeks' time, those three schools will write to parents to let them know whether their child was successful in applying to the school. There will be hundreds of students awaiting that news. This is a time of year and a time in sixth class students' lives that should be exciting for them. They should hear in November which secondary school they will go to. They will know if their friends are going to the same school and they will be excited about making new friends, going to a new school and, perhaps, using an iPad. I know from experience that having a locker is also a really big thing for these students. This should be an exciting time for them but, unfortunately, we are yet again going to have a large number of students in Greystones for whom this time will not be exciting. Instead, it will be very stressful for them and their parents. This is because a large number of children will not get a school place in November.

This is something we have seen very regularly in the Greystones area, primarily because there has been great growth in the area. We have seen more than 4,000 new people come into our community since the previous census. However, it is not just because of the growth. It is also because investment in school infrastructure has not kept pace with that growth. That is the main problem. Of the three schools that opened their enrolments, two are unable to offer the same number of places they did last year. For this incoming intake, there will be 72 fewer places for secondary school students. This is a great deficit and there is a discrepancy in the numbers because there are more sixth class students coming out of the primary schools this year. This is going to be a big problem.

To be fair to the schools, they have been incredibly proactive in this. The three schools came together and issued a press release informing parents that there will be problems with enrolment this year. One of the schools, Temple Carrig School, had to wait two years for four temporary Portakabins to be put in to help deal with capacity issues. The promised permanent extension for that school is nowhere to be seen. There has been no update on it so the school is having to reduce the number of children it can take in in September. The story is similar with Greystones Community College. It too is reducing numbers because it is waiting for a brand new school building. That will be fantastic when built but it needs to be fast-tracked.

I hope the Minister of State has a script from the Minister telling me exactly how the Department is going to ensure every child in Greystones will have a secondary school place available to him or her for 2024. Parents will need that information, as will the children and the schools. I hope he will be able to provide us with that clarity this evening.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I am taking this Topical Issue debate on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley. I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. It gives me the opportunity to set out for the House the position with regard to post-primary school places in Greystones for September 2024 and onwards. I assure the Deputy that the provision of school places to meet the needs of children and young people at primary and post-primary level, including children and young people with special educational needs, is an absolute priority for the Department.

As the Deputy may be aware, for school planning purposes, the Department of Education divides the country into 314 school planning areas and uses a geographical information system, GIS, to anticipate school place demand. Information from a range of sources, including child benefit data, school enrolment data and information on residential development, is used for this purpose. In addition, Project Ireland 2040 population and housing targets inform the Department’s projections for school place requirements. Having considered the projected requirements in each school planning area, the Department then makes an assessment of the existing capacity within that particular area and its ability to meet any increased demand. Where data indicate that additional provision is required at primary or post-primary level, the delivery of such provision is dependent on the particular circumstances of each case and may be provided through either one or a combination of utilising existing unused capacity within a school or schools, extending the capacity of a school or schools and the provision of a new school or schools.

The Department is aware of pressures at post-primary level in the Greystones school planning area, which are partly due to the currently proposed reduction in first year places for 2024-2025, and is working to establish the true extent of any capacity issues across the school planning area through ongoing discussions with the relevant school patrons and authorities. This close engagement will also allow the Department to identify particular capacity requirements for the coming years and put any required solutions in place to ensure sufficient school places to meet the needs of students in the area.

The Department's projections of post-primary school place requirements in Greystones show an anticipated continued growth in enrolments until 2024. In response to the projections of school place needs in Greystones, the Department is providing significant additional post-primary capacity, including a new 1,000-pupil school building for Greystones Community College. Greystones Community College was established in 2020 as a regional solution for the Kilcoole and Greystones area. The project to deliver this new school building is at stage 3, the tender stage. In addition to this project, the Department has recently delivered a major building project to expand St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary School and is also progressing a building project for Temple Carrig School in Greystones under the national development plan.

St. David’s Holy Faith Secondary School is co-educational and a major building project to deliver state-of-the-art modern school accommodation for 750 pupils was provided at the school. Temple Carrig School in Greystones is also a co-educational school and was established in 2014. There is a project under way to provide accommodation at this school for 1,000 pupils, which is currently at stage 1, the preliminary design stage. A project to deliver four modular mainstream classrooms has also been approved. These classrooms are now on site and the project is nearing completion. In addition, there is the existing school in the adjacent Kilcoole school planning area, Coláiste Craobh Abhann. A major project to expand this school to 1,000 pupils has been approved and is currently at stage 2b. It is being delivered by the National Development Finance Agency.

I assure the Deputy that Department officials will continue to actively engage with schools and patrons to ensure there is appropriate provision for all students in Greystones for the 2024-2025 school year and into the future. Families can be assured that any necessary solution will be delivered so that all of the children in the Greystones school planning area will receive a first year place.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister of State. He specified four schools. He mentioned Greystones Community College, which is to receive a new building. That is very welcome and we are really looking forward to it. No date as to when it will be delivered is provided in his response. My understanding is that it is to be in 2025, but that is assuming everything goes well. From experience, it tends not to.

On St. David's Holy Faith Secondary School, yes, it is a fantastic facility. Lots of investment has gone into it. My understanding is that it has not resulted in any additional places within that school. They are offering the same number of places in 2023 as they will be offering for 2024.

On Temple Carrig Secondary School, the Minister of State said that the classrooms are now on site and the programme is nearing completion. That school was built for 750 pupils and it currently has 950 pupils in it. I know because my children go there. They have had to teach their children in corridors in that school. Those portacabins only deal with the increased number of pupils the school has taken in over a number of years. They will not allow the school to take on any additional pupils and as a result, Temple Carrig is offering less places for 2024. It is also waiting for a permanent extension, and it is unfortunate that the Minister of State has not provided any details for timelines for that. It is at stage 1 but it has been at stage 1 for quite some time.

Regarding Coláiste Chraobh Abhann, CCA in Kilcoole, there is a project planned for that. Again, it is currently at stage 2B, with no further information. We have no dates, no timelines and no security for parents or for the schools that the facilities will be available for them. However, I take comfort from the fact that the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, has said that all children in the Greystones planning area will receive a first year place. Can the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, please pass this onto the Minister, Deputy Foley: please get the Department to work very closely with the schools in the area, so that this is sorted out as soon as possible. What we do not want to have is parents worrying for months, and solutions being cobbled together at the last minute. I ask that we please avoid that stress for parents and the school community.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I want to acknowledge the remarks of Deputy Whitmore in the short response. In truth, the Temple Carrig Secondary School, Greystones project is at stage 1, which is preliminary design. In addition, regarding the Kilcoole area, I mentioned the project at stage 2B. That is early stages, and it is not possible to put a timescale on the finalisation of that project or either of those projects at this stage. I do not have an exact date. It would not be possible to give a date on those yet because it has not gone through the tender process.

I also want to thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to relay the position regarding Greystones. I will personally speak to the Minister, Deputy Foley, on this matter because I am here on her behalf tonight. As I have outlined, there is a strong pipeline of projects, and these are delivering significant additional capacity. I take the point the Deputy has made about the school that is already over capacity. Some of the prefabs are already accounted for with regard to dealing with that area. The Department has been in contact with the schools and patrons, and they are aware of the evolving situation with respect to first year places for 2024. We are reliant on getting clear data from the schools in a prompt manner, which the Department wants to verify. Sometimes, and I know this from my own area in Portlaoise, when there is a situation like this, parents apply to a number of schools and there can be a duplication of applications. That needs to be examined on a school-by-school basis. I can understand why parents do that but sometimes it can lead to a greater number of applications than there are physically children or pupils in order to go ahead.

On that basis, the Department is monitoring the data very carefully and I can only reiterate the Minister's commitment that there will be a place for everybody in the Greystones area in September 2024.