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

The Minister of State's response is not adequate. The parents, students and staff have been fighting for this school and they have gone through all the hoops for 17 years. The Department has long since accepted the urgent need to rebuild this school to enable it to deliver the education syllabus and to provide adequate surroundings in order for 830 students to learn. At present, the school is a health and safety hazard. It is not suitable for the job it is supposed to do, namely, to teach more than 800 young people and educate them properly. It is not fair on the students, staff and parents to delay this when they have done everything right and when the Department itself has accepted they deserve this rebuild.

I appeal to and urge the Minister to reconsider this and to give a commitment that the rebuild of Newpark school will go ahead this year or at the very latest next year, as was expected and as the Department had indicated would happen. It is simply not fair, justified or acceptable that this should be delayed for another few years which, I suspect, would leave parents, students and staff believing they will never get the rebuild and that it will always - again and again - be put on the long finger when it is so urgently needed. Will the Minister of State give a commitment that he will review this and do something to help the extreme anger and frustration of the parents, staff and students of Newpark, who deserve their new school?

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