Nicky McFadden (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

For the record, Foster and Allen are a great Westmeath group.

Coosan national school was originally built at its current site on the outskirts of Athlone in 1964 as a two-teacher country school. In 1987, five new classes were built while the original two classrooms were converted into a general purpose room. The current school consists of the main building, housing five mainstream classes, one language and two resource teachers with the general purpose room now again being used as a classroom. A further eight mainstream classes, along with one language, one learning support and one resource teacher, are in prefabs.

In 2005, the school enrolment stood at 247. Now it is 351, a 42% increase. Of the 351 pupils, 226, 64.5%, are being educated in prefabs. Three of these prefabs are being rented at an annual cost to the Department of Education and Skills in excess of €32,000. Two were purchased by the school's board of management and six are the property of the Department. The school no longer has any form of indoor activities area - no gym, no hall, nowhere for band practice or assembly.

The growth in enrolment is a direct result of increased housing development in the school's catchment area. Growth in school-going numbers is expected to continue over the next four to five years as many young families have moved into the area.

Having been originally sanctioned by the Department for development of a new 16-classroom school on the present site in January 2007 and with a design team having been appointed subject to Department approval, the process was put on hold due to "progression of all projects being reviewed under restructuring of the multi-annual building programme budget" in January 2008. In other words, this was due to a lack of funding and the design team was not ratified.

Communication between the Department and the school continued over the following two years, with the appointment of a departmental architect to the project and, eventually, in September 2010, the approval was reactivated and the board of management was advised by the Department to enter the process of appointing a design team under new guidelines. The team was duly contracted in accordance with the Department's requirements in January 2011. The team has presented reports to the Department to the point of completion of stage 1 of the development. Subject to departmental approval, the school is ready to seek planning permission from Westmeath County Council. In light of recent announcements regarding the Government's capital programme, as it relates to primary school developments, can the Minister of State update the House on the intention of the Department to proceed with the development of this national school?

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