Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very grateful to the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise with the Minister for Education and Skills the need for him to provide an update on and to outline the provisions which have been put in place to provide additional school places in Greystones, Kilcoole and Delgany in County Wicklow.

We have a recurring problem in Greystones and in the wider Greystones area where in the run-up to September, there is a scramble for school places. Parents who have been very dutiful and have put their child's name on a list in accordance with the right protocols and timeframes find themselves not knowing whether their child will have a school place in the school of their choice and in the school with the ethos of their choice as is their right as parents. In some cases, they do not know whether their child will have a place in any school. As the Minister can imagine, this is causing huge worry and stress. I have dealt with this issue each September during my time in this House and before that. It is a recurring issue that needs to be addressed.

In fairness to the Minister and his Department, extra classrooms were provided for St. Laurence's national school, St. Patrick's national school and St. Kevin's national school. However what is happening is that we are falling into the sticking plaster solution where every year the Department meets the eight representatives of the eight schools in that catchment area. The principals and the boards of management will acknowledge that the Department has been very helpful in trying to provide temporary solutions but they are only solutions to get them to the following September.

We need to engage in more long-term planning and my colleagues at local level - members of Wicklow County Council and members of the former Greystones Town Council - have expressed this concern to the Minister and to his Department. We need a longer-term solution. This is not a reflection on the Minister, who I have always found to be very helpful and forthcoming with information, but the answers to parliamentary questions I have submitted and which have been answered in the Minister's name have been less than forthcoming and have been mealy-mouthed. I submitted a parliamentary question on this issue on 7 May 2014, Question No. 96, but I was not satisfied with the answer which provided me with no information. I submitted another question three weeks later, Question No. 236 on 27 May 2014, asking a series of specific questions. The words matter and I do not just include them to make the question look long. Most of the elements of the question were ignored. My office was told by civil servants in the Minister's Department to stop contacting them as it would not help resolve the matter.

As a public representative, Member of Dáil Éireann and a supporter of this Government, I have been inundated with requests from worried parents - neighbours and friends in our community - wanting to know if their child will have a school place. There should be a better system in place to engage with parents and provide information. No parent should have to go to his or her TD to find out what the situation is in regard to a school place, but if he or she does, the TD should be able to find that information quite easily. Will the Department look at some sort of collaborative role in regard to making information publicly available on websites in terms of the number of places provided within a catchment area vis-à-visthe number of children expected to need to a school place this year? When I ask questions about what action is being taken and when the review will be complete, it would be helpful if that information could be provided because some of the questions I am asking are also being asked by the local schools. We have to do better.

Ultimately, we need another school in Greystones, and I have written to the Minister about this.

The reason for that is because the existing schools simply do not have the space to expand adequately. Based on population figures, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has advised the area is to grow in population and we will have a population bulge in the future. We need a new school in the area of Greystones known as Charlesland. Will the Minister provide details on the situation that will arise in September and also take a longer term look to ensure we do not have the same problem again next year that has arisen in the past two to three years?

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