Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has heard me speaking about this before. In the Newbridge, Kilcullen and Kildare catchment area of Kildare South, many in the educational field believe, as I do, that a secondary school is merited. The data brought forward by the Department, however, state that it is not, though these data included fee-paying schools and this should not be the case. I accept that birth rate is only one of the measures used but housing prices are going up steadily again in Dublin and we are going to see many families with small children moving out of Dublin and into the commuter belts of Kildare, Wicklow, Meath and other counties. Their children will not have been born in those commuter areas but, all of a sudden, much higher numbers may be starting school than anticipated by the birth rate figures. I accept it is a wider issue but we cannot make this point often enough.