James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for allowing me to speak today and I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for informing me.

On the east Cork area, I represent the area and I know that the officials are familiar with the growing amount of housing that is going up in the region. At today's meeting there has been reference, through questions asked by Deputy O'Sullivan, on the potential medium-term decline in the requirement for school places in Ireland. However, there are areas of the country that will experience significant growth due to an increasing number of strategic housing development, SHDs. One of those areas is in my constituency and it borders on that of Deputy O'Sullivan. The school placement issue there is chronic. We know that thousands of new houses will be constructed and I am concerned that as of today, every single school in my constituency is at capacity plus has already taken on additional capacity through forms of additional accommodation in prefabricated units. There are several schools and I do not want to mention them individually. The schools in Midleton cannot take any more as they are full. In Carrigtwohill, there is a school entirely in a temporary location but it is at capacity. The new building is almost complete. I hope that the project will be completed in the next 12 to 18 months and upon its completion the school is full. So even the newly-created school has no more additional capacity. We expect an additional construction of somewhere in the region of 2,000 and 3,000 houses over the course of the next five or six years but the Department has no plan whatsoever for an additional school in the area despite the fact that we know, and the Department knows, and I am sure that the Department previously knew, that there would be population growth in the region.

I hate to be blunt, but what are the witnesses going to do about it? I have tried everything I can here in the past three years, and I am a bit frustrated at the level of progress on the part of the Department.