Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I have to admit a certain personal interest in this matter. I am the father of a child who attends Newpark Comprehensive School. Another one of my children will go there in a few years time. As Deputy Harris said, Newpark Comprehensive School caters for 830 children. It is one of the few non-fee paying secondary schools in its large catchment area, which extends from County Wicklow to parts of Dublin like Booterstown and Mount Merrion that are closer to the city centre. I suggest that the current economic crisis will lead to an increase in the demand for non-fee paying schools. I cannot overstate the anger, frustration and disappointment of the parents, staff and students of the school when they heard the news in December of last year - 17 years after the Department accepted that the school needed a new building, such was its level of dilapidation even at that stage - that it was not listed to receive the rebuild that was expected to take place this year.

The school has spent 17 years going through all the hoops, working up designs, getting planning permission, going through appeals and battling to get its dilapidated building rebuilt. Even though the Department accepts a new building is needed, it has taken the school off the list and said the rebuild will not happen until 2015. Tiles are falling off the roof of the school. Its science laboratories do not have proper running water all of the time. It has lighting problems and disability access problems. There are rotten smells in the school corridors. The science rooms are not of the standard required to deliver the science syllabus. In many cases, the toilets are completely inadequate. There are problems with people tripping over, etc., because of problems with the floors. There are all sorts of problems. The school is seriously dilapidated. The Department accepted 17 years ago that a new school was needed. I urge the Minister and the Department to deliver the rebuild of this school. It should not be delayed until 2015. It should be put back on the list for this year or for 2013, at the very latest.

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