Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I have three minutes, so I will have to be very quick. First, the witnesses mentioned emergency works. I am not sure if the Department has quite the same definition of "emergency". I say this because one secondary school in my constituency, Mercy Secondary School, Inchicore, has a collapsing boundary wall. It cannot get an answer from the Department about fixing the wall. People on the other side of the wall are naturally very concerned about it but the school cannot seem to get an answer on it.

The witnesses mentioned the model for planning, how new schools are established in response to demographic growth, and how the Department wants to keep pace with housing roll-out. The challenge is that there does not seem to be any way to address existing areas of underprovision. The Department does not seem to be looking at those gaps and filling them. It also does not seem to be looking at underprovision in terms of school and patronage choice and actively working to fill those gaps. I rely a lot here on the work of Dr. JoAnne Mancini from Maynooth University, who has done a lot of research on this and has published on it.

I am also fascinated to hear assertions regarding capacity in Dublin 8. It was said that there is plenty of capacity, and that new builds are prioritised where there is no capacity in the existing system. The trouble is, I asked a parliamentary question about capacity and was told the Department does not measure it and does not have figures on capacity for school planning areas. This completely contradicts all of these assertions here. Which is it? Does the Department count capacity? If so, why was it not provided in the reply to the parliamentary question? Is the parliamentary question right, and the Department does not actually count capacity? If that is the case, how is the Department making these assertions?

The intake ratio for the Dublin 8 school planning area is 55%, and 45% of kids are travelling outside the area. The Dublin 12 school planning area is about 70%. Blackrock-Booterstown is 325%. It caters for the 100% of pupils in that area plus 225% more, and yet it was provided with an Educate Together secondary school. We have this inconsistency in the planning numbers, where areas that have huge provision are getting extra capacity. Patronage documents said there was an estimated 651 excess pupils in Dublin 8. I have been told by the Department that between 600 and 1,000 excess pupils are needed to get a new secondary school.

Based on the number the Department provided in the patronage documents, namely, 651, Dublin 8 should be getting a secondary school but it is not and the witnesses keep telling me there is no capacity there. The number for Goatstown-Stillorgan was 445 and it got a school. The same is true of Enfield, where the number was 322, and Kingscourt, where it was 208. Why, therefore, is Dublin 8, with 651 excess pupils based on the existing underprovision not in line with the roll-out, not getting a school? Why is there that inconsistency? My party colleague Deputy Ó Cathasaigh mentioned the scope 3 emissions in the climate action plan, which we have been talking about. Inchicore is very well connected, but Kilmainham B has the lowest level of walking or cycling to school in all of Dublin city. Those kids are being put into cars and going to other parts of the city and that is contributing to emissions. The best school a kid can go to is her or her local school, for community, social networks and emissions. The answer from the Department is that Dublin 8 is provided for by a school in Sandymount, which is not in any way within walkable distance. Teachers in the Sandymount school are complaining to me because their pupils have a 90-minute commute, are arriving tired, are leaving early and are falling behind because they do not have time to study or do their homework because of that 90-minute commute.

Does the Department actually count capacity? Which is wrong, the witnesses' assertions during this meeting or the answer I received in response to a parliamentary question? Second, why is there no consistency in the provision of schools? Areas with significantly less provision are getting schools, whereas Dublin 8 is told it does not deserve one. Third, what is the Department doing in forward planning to address the existing underprovision, not just to provide for future demographics?