Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. This time last year, I rose in the House to express the devastation which was felt by my constituents in Kilbarrack's Foxfield-St. John's parish and east Kilbarrack in particular at the closure of Greendale community school. Without any consultation, the trustees, namely, the Jesuit Order, Holy Faith Order and the vocational education committee, decided or advised the Department of Education and Science on a closure. The staff, principal, parents, students and the local community of Kilbarrack were devastated, especially given the school's very impressive history since 1975 and from its peak enrolment of almost 1,000 students. Currently it has more than 1,000 adult and post leaving certificate students.

It was no wonder that during last year's elections, a campaign called SOS — Save our School was mounted. It is still the wish of the district that Greendale community school remains open. The Minister will know of some of the school's famous staff such as the great Brian Mullins, Roddy Doyle, Paul Mercier and others of a total of 30 hard-working and distinguished teachers who carried on the tradition for the people of Kilbarrack and Raheny over the past three decades.

I recently met the school stewards, Ms Niamh O'Dwyer of the TUI and Ms Maura Cullen of the ASTI, who gave me a dreadfully worrying account of the grave problems which have been imposed on the school by this precipitate closure. They outline the difficulties which will ensue for staff and students from the lack of consultation or liaison with the Minister's Department to date in regard to the future of staff and students. The 29 full-time staff and large number of part-time staff have had no communication about their future. The Minister and I both come from educational backgrounds and know how worrying and upsetting this must be for people with families and mortgages to consider. It is not good enough that we have not clearly spelt out what will be the future of the current school staff.

It is important that the Minister takes a hands-on approach to this matter, examines it urgently and liaises with the principal, Anton Carroll, and his distinguished staff. She should advise them of what will happen in the next two and a half years. We do not seem to have a modus operandi for the closure of a second level school, although we have seen closures of primary schools as the population works its way up. We need more primary level schools now but it is proposed to close no less than three very distinguished second level schools in my constituency, including Greendale community school.

The staff representatives are particularly concerned about part-time staff, some of whom have worked at the school for more than six years and have contracts of indefinite duration. Their futures are in limbo and we need to spell out clearly what will happen to them. Staff representatives also have grave concerns about the students because of what is happening in the school and because a closure date of 2007 has been indicated. There will be no first or transition year students in September and the number of students in sixth year has fallen to 28. They are very concerned as to how, when redeployment and retirement of staff comes into play, the principal, Anton Carroll, and his board will provide sufficient curriculum cover for all the students and ensure that the excellent and tremendous education which has been carried on at that campus for the past 30 years is continued until its closure.

My constituents do not want the school to close but they are very anxious that the campus remains as an educational campus. However, given that we are in this situation, it is important that the Minister liaises with the school and I appeal to her to do so. It must be disorienting and disturbing for staff, students, parents and the Kilbarrack and Raheny communities that this situation exists and I ask the Minister to take a sympathetic and considerate view of the current circumstances and ask her to have her staff immediately liaise closely with the principal, Anton Carroll, his staff, parents and pupils to try to manage this difficult situation.

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