Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

We acknowledge that. As the Minister said, at the Summerhill campus, three primary schools are amalgamating into two and a new site has been acquired for Educate Together the gaelscoil and Maryborough Church of Ireland national school. The Gaelscoil, Educate Together and Maryborough national school are located in the town, so the town already has diversity of provision, albeit not in the best accommodation. Some of them are located in old VEC offices or in quite old buildings. The Gaelscoil has a temporary arrangement, so we look forward to those projects proceeding. However, Scoil Bhríde, Knockmay, was further advanced in the process, given that planning permission has not been obtained for any of the other school projects, yet it is not being allowed to proceed to the pre-tendering and construction stage as soon as some of the other schools.

Will the Minister allow the Scoil Bhríde project to proceed at least at the same pace as the other projects? I urge him not to disadvantage the largest and only major DEIS school in the county by putting it a year or two behind the others. If there are spanking new schools at one end of the town, pupils will drift to those schools and that is understandable. I am sure the Minister has some flexibility in the plan so I ask him to ensure this project does not lag behind the others but moves at the same pace. I conclude with that but perhaps the Minister will confirm precisely what he meant by his earlier reference.

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