Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael)

While the issue I raise may not be as vitally important as the life and death ones my colleagues who spoke before me raised, the biggest issue in my area is the lack of schools. A public private partnership for a site for schools was announced in 2005. I believe that Wexford County Council has done a deal with the Department of Education and Science on the purchase of an 18-acre site in Gorey. However, I am trying to find out what stage we are at in regard to the building of the schools on the site. We are three years further down the line and there seems to be a dearth of information in this regard. Nobody seems to know what is happening and whether there is to be one school or two schools.

I tabled parliamentary questions to the Minister for Education and Science asking when something will happen, to which the response was "shortly", which is like asking "How long is a piece of string?" I hope we will be given much more detailed answers to fair and valid questions. When will planning permission be sought? I believe there was an advertisement in the newspaper. I have been told these are almost pre-packed, pre-built schools which will be constructed on site. What sporting amenities will be available, which will be used by the general community as well as the school? Perhaps the most important question is who will be the patrons of the school or schools.

The last answer I got to a parliamentary question asking whether there would be one primary school or two primary schools on the site was that it had not been decided but, amazingly, a couple of weeks later there was a planning permission application for two schools. I am not here to badger anybody but the lack of information and the manner in which I, as a representative from the area, have been treated are not good enough. That decision had been made when I tabled that question because planning permission was applied for within a couple of weeks. I got a short, terse reply that a decision had not been made. That is not good enough and I hope the Minister will shed more light on the matter.

The same questions apply in respect of the new second level school on that site. When will planning permission be submitted? What type of school will be built? Who will be the patrons?

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