Ms Muireann Carr:

I thank the committee for the invitation to appear. My name is Muireann Carr and I am the deputy principal of Ballinteer Educate Together national school in Dublin 14. I am making a statement and in attendance on behalf of Marie Gordon, who unfortunately cannot be here today.

Our school opened in 2012 with one junior infant class. Now, in 2018, we have 11 classes, 275 pupils and a waiting list of more than 250 for our 60 places next year. We will grow to a minimum of 335 pupils and a staff of at least 25 next year and we are currently located in the second of our temporary buildings. For the first five years, we occupied a section of St. Tiernan's community school in Balally, Dublin 16. The latter is a secondary school adjacent to our permanent location. The classrooms and prefabs there were half the size of a primary classroom; one class in particular was in a converted locker room a quarter the size of a primary classroom. Four learning support teachers worked with children with special educational needs in the lobby, divided by bookcases and notice boards. The principal's office was constructed by our caretaker out of recycled plasterboard in a corner of the lobby. We had no sports hall, so PE and sports were dependent entirely on the weather. Most parents bought or rented houses and apartments in the area to be near a permanent location and now must travel much further to our current location.

Five years later, in August 2017, we were instructed by the Department to move everything to Notre Dame in Churchtown, Dublin 14. This is a distance of approximately 3 km but traffic means the journey can take half an hour or more. Many families, despite loving the school, have been compelled to move on to other schools. This has had a knock-on effect on numbers in the school and the staffing schedule. The bus transport section of the Department of Education and Skills will not provide transport for our displaced families even though we meet the required distances. Approximately ten to 15 families have had to pay for a private bus at a cost of €60 per child per month. Many parents had to spend last summer searching for after-school facilities in the new area and organise extra childcare. The impact of the delays in securing our permanent building include: the difficult educational environment for pupils, especially those with special educational needs; challenging work conditions for staff and the principal; the deflection of a principal's role from that of teaching and learning; a demoralising lack of communication and evidence of progress; extra financial costs for families; parents' feeling that their right to a school of their choosing is not being facilitated; logistical challenges; health and safety issues; the erosion of confidence in the Department; difficulty in embedding the school in the community due to moving and the lack of a definite long-term plan; the challenges for the board of management in dealing with a lack of communication and organising constant change, refurbishment and logistics; and the cost to the school of a second temporary refurbishment - for example, IT costs. The board consequently needs to manage finances with great skill in order to deal with the extra costs associated with making the temporary accommodation fit for purpose.

From our school's perspective, the cause of the delays in constructing a school building appear to be: a lack of forward planning, which allowed a suitable building owned by the Department of Education and Skills to become landlocked over the course of 30 years; perhaps a lack of analysis of demographics and the consequent future need for a school in our area; and an apparent lack of joined-up planning involving one person or one section of the Department focusing on the project from the sanctioning of the school all the way to the completion of the construction.

I thank the committee and I will be happy to answer any questions.