Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Cheann Comhairle as ucht an deis seo a thabhairt dom an cheist seo a ardú. I thank the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, for coming into the House to address this matter. It is not just appreciated by myself but the people I represent that he is engaging with us on this level.

Like other towns across the country, the population of the greater Clonakilty area has grown over the past decade. Similarly, it will face challenges in acquiring the necessary infrastructure to meet the educational needs of future generations. Clonakilty Community College was designed and built to accommodate 400 students but now has over 600 students enrolled. The school has a shortage of science laboratories and a critical lack of other facilities which would lend themselves to good teaching practices. Along with the health and safety implications of this aspect of overcrowding, the school relies on an old vocational building at the other end of the town to accommodate overflow classes which means students must traverse the very busy town centre to get to classes at the different sites in all sorts of weather. This also poses difficulties to school management when timetabling classes.

An extension to the college has been promised for the past ten years. Just ahead of the 2002 general election, the appointment of a design team for an extension to the college was announced with great fanfare by then Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Joe Walsh. The promise was repeated again before the 2007 general election with the same ministerial letter confirming the appointment of a design team doing the rounds. As of yet, however, nothing has materialised.

While the extension is on a list of schools building projects for progression in 2011, I have not been able to ascertain any real movement from the Department. Will the Minister give some political assistance to progress this important project? Being a realist, I accept the Department has a limited capital works budget of €440 million for next year while the Minister has 180 individual requests on his desk for schools building projects. However, Clonakilty Community College, its students, their parents and staff deserve better after a decade of false promises and disappointment.

Will the Minister engage with his officials to progress this overdue extension to accommodate future generations of students in the greater Clonakilty area? Five similar projects in County Cork have been devolved to Cork County Vocational Education Committee already this year, all of which are progressing satisfactorily. Will the Minister consider such a move in this case to facilitate it moving on to the design stage?

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