John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I protest in the strongest possible terms at the unacceptable treatment of three applications for new school buildings in County Mayo.

The principal and board of management of Midfield national school, Swinford, have been pursuing building extension and renovation works for over ten years. The Department of Education and Science's consultants acknowledged the school's urgent need in 1998 and €30,000 was spent on professional fees. The project went to the costing stage but was then shelved.

In 2006 the school authorities were advised to re-apply under the small schools scheme and an architect was commissioned to carry out a report. He noted that other businesses would be shut down under health and safety regulations as the classrooms, heating system, sewerage system, roof, windows, toilets and play areas were all substandard. The septic tank is seeping sewage near the play areas. This application will become an emergency in September 2008 when projected numbers will necessitate the employment of an extra teacher. The school is trying to function under Third World conditions while coping with the increasing numbers of children being enrolled. One parent asked me in the context of the Taoiseach's announcement last December of €5 million for shanty towns in Cape Town how the school could be treated so badly.

Gaelscoil Uileog De Búrca in Claremorris opened in 1989 with an enrolment of eight children. Attendance is currently 109 children and the projected enrolment for next year is 120. In 1998 the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Martin, promised a new school if a site was agreed. The site was purchased in 2005 and further land was acquired in 2007. The Department has promised a new eight-classroom school and the sanction of the current Minister, Deputy Hanafin, is awaited. The school has operated for ten years out of an old, dilapidated two-teacher premises with four prefabs at an annual rent of €70,000. The school could have been built for the amount of money that had to be spent leasing prefabs.

St. Joseph's national school, Bonniconlon, is another project which has been ongoing for more than 10 years, causing frustration for teachers, pupils, parents and the board of management. In 2000 the local community began fundraising for the local contribution and accessed alternative accommodation to have everything in readiness when the application passed through the various planning stages. The Minister sanctioned the building of the new school at a meeting in Knock in 2006. The board of management was told on umpteen occasions that the building would go to tender in January 2008 only to get the dreaded phone call from the Department in the week before Christmas. The board of management is now totally frustrated and feels isolated, particularly following the emergence of the recent list of school building projects in respect of which the go-ahead was announced at the end of January.

The Minister and the Department have assured us that resources are not solely going into rapidly developing areas but the evidence points to the contrary. The three schools to which I refer are situated in areas of developing population and the teachers, parents and boards of management are very angry at the lack of transparency in the system which gave the go-ahead to the recently announced projects and left those to which I refer, which are long awaited and much needed, in limbo.

Under previous Administrations, the school building programme was considered slow but fair and schools knew their place in the queue. However, school boards of management throughout the country are now questioning the transparency of a programme that is excluding previously approved schools without explanation. There is genuine anger in those schools that have waited years for projects involving renovations, extensions or the construction of new school buildings to commence and in respect of which progress is yet to be made. In the meantime, other schools appear to be getting the go-ahead to proceed to construction and this is leading to complaints about the lack of transparency in the process.

I call on the Minister to include the schools to which I refer in the next round of announcements in order that the communities they serve can have access, in appropriate school buildings, to the high standard of education they richly deserve.

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