Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)

The first part of the reply was that there are 21 primary schools in the Mullingar catchment area. This is only true if one were to travel out as far as Castlepollard or Ballinagore. How can the Minister tell a Mullingar parent with a child starting school in September that there is a place 12 miles away in Ballinagore? How will they get there? This is rubbish.

There was a comment about temporary accommodation being provided to some schools, such as in Curramore and Gainstown. I checked with these schools and they got extra accommodation but it was not for new pupils. Rather, it was for pupils already within the schools. The extra accommodation is not helping the current situation.

The Minister spoke about a school losing 50 pupils and this is where her officials are pulling the wool over her eyes. There is a school that lost 50 pupils over a period of five years, but why was this so? To include it in a response is degrading to the school. There were classes of 38 to 40 pupils but these returned to the norm of 29 in a class.

See this speech in context