Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

I raised this issue in the House on 20 May 2004 but there has not been much progress since. Dromclough national school, my alma mater, has 197 pupils and had 176 in 2004. The school is therefore expanding but unfortunately the Department has been very slow in providing proper accommodation.

There are 11 teachers in the school, including seven class teachers, three resource and learning support teachers and a principal. There are six classrooms and one prefab. Four of the classrooms are deemed unsuitable for teaching and this is implied in the report of the inspector.

In January 2006, a new school of eight classrooms was approved by the Department but representatives of the school are still waiting for an architect, quantity surveyor and official from the Department to visit the site to decide on the exact design and determine whether two of the classrooms of the existing school could be integrated into the new one. This is very unlikely. In the meantime, progress has been made on new schools in the locality and there have been amalgamations. When the site had to be identified, two existing schools had to be more or less ruled out for further extension. Dromclough, however, seems to have been left behind. I appeal to the Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, to make a special case for the school such that a team can visit it as soon as possible to decide on the exact design of the new eight-classroom school.

I will not elaborate on the conditions in which the teachers are working as I did so three years ago. The conditions are still the same and the principal's office is in a converted bathroom, which is just not acceptable.

I appeal to the Minister of State to mention this case to one of his officials so he or she will remind the Department that it should be treated as a matter of urgency and not be left on the long finger. The principal, her staff and the parents are becoming increasingly frustrated at the apparent lack of action given that they see action in respect of other schools in the area, including those in the same parish.

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