Ms Lisa Ryan:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it today on behalf of the concerned parents group from Our Lady's Grove primary school in Goatstown, Dublin 14. From our experience in the past year, during which our school's land was sold for residential development, we believe an intervention and long-term strategy are needed from the Department of Education and Skills to ensure the private lands attached to many public schools across Ireland are not sold for development. Our main concern is that there is a lack of child-centred holistic planning for educational campuses across public school sites. Sports facilities and open space are crucial for the physical and mental health of children and these should not only be available to children attending private schools, which appears to be increasingly the situation in urban areas. The land is also needed to enable future expansion of the schools. In our case, many new developments are being built in and around the catchment area without sufficient school places planned.

Our school was founded by the Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary, which purchased the land in the 1960s to set up the school. The campus consists of a public primary school, a public secondary school and a not-for-profit preschool and after-school facility. Since 2006 the religious order has sold the school land for development and last year the remaining land was sold for €13 million. Members can see the images in the additional material I submitted showing the almost complete removal of green space from the school. What have we done? We conducted a public campaign to retain some of the land of our school and that of Clonkeen College via Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council last year, as it is currently zoned A for residential amenity with an institutional label. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council's head of planning was very clear that these lands could be protected if the Department of Education and Skills required their protection, which it has not done to date. The head of planning noted that the current footprint of the primary school is below the Department's guidelines for a school with this number of pupils.

We also met the Minister, Deputy Bruton, in May last year. He told us that the reduction in green space was not unusual for an urban school. He also responded that the Department has a just-in-time approach to capital expenditure on schools and had decided there were sufficient school places in the area and that no further expansion would be necessary. However, this information has been contradicted in recent months by the Department with the announcement of new schools to be built in the area and three additional classrooms to be added to the school, removing the last little strip of green space from the school.

In conclusion, the consequences of selling school lands will be felt now and into the future in our children's development and well-being. The Department of Education and Skills has the power to intervene to avoid a serious negative impact on the future of our educational system. We understand that 95 of the 105 national schools in the Dublin and Rathdown area are in the same situation as this school. We recommend that the Department examine all zoning and planning applications for lands associated with schools and that it direct planners to protect sufficient green space before allowing them to be zoned residential. In addition, when the State invests in a school or buildings perhaps it should take equity in the facilities or the land in return in order that a certain percentage of green space or playing fields remains in use for the school and the local community in perpetuity.

I thank the committee for its consideration of this matter.