Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Gregory's amendment concerns educational programmes and Deputy O'Sullivan referred to the importance of the provision of such courses. It is important to stress that this legislation relates to the site rather than the college. The onus is on the college to provide educational programmes and it is up to those responsible for the site to provide the buildings in which such programmes can be conducted. It is not necessary to be more specific in this section. The provisions are adequate and it is not necessary to enumerate all of the various facilities needed. I draw the attention of the Deputies to the opening line of the section, which refers to the provision for the "needs of the Minister", meaning the Minister for Education and Science. That covers a wide range of educational facilities needed on the site.

I ask Deputies to take cognisance of amendment No. 33, which refers to the needs of the local community. This covers the issues raised by Deputy Gogarty. The local community needs are now covered by the legislation, as a consequence of that amendment, under subsection 2(a). Needs are covered in a general sense and it is important that we should not be too specific.

Various commitments have been given regarding the Educate Together school and it is still the intention that the school will be located on the Grangegorman site. That is what was originally envisaged and that is still the case. The Grangegorman site was always the location being considered for the school. However, if we specify Educate Together in the legislation, we may inadvertently exclude others. At some point in the future a proposal could be made to locate a post-primary school on the site but that might be challenged on the basis that it was not, unlike Educate Together, specifically mentioned in the legislation and therefore could not be allowed.

My Department has been in contact with Dublin 7 Educate Together and explained the situation to it, namely, that it is still the intention to locate the school on the site but that it might be injurious to another group to specify one particular facility. That is why I do not propose to accept the amendment. It would be counter-productive to the aims of the agency and I hope the Deputies will accept that.

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