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

There is no news there for Gaelschoil Phádraig. It is aware of all that the Minister of State said. This is the fear, that it will extend beyond this year. The situation has got progressively worse for it after a 20 year saga of moving from one place to another. It was in one room without proper windows, then it had two classrooms in another school, then it had to be bussed to another area, now it has been in the prefabs for years. These prefabs are way beyond their sell-by date and are completely unsuitable. The numbers have increased by 26 this year so there will be more overcrowding. It had to hold last year's school concert in the playground. That is the only place it can hold assembly as well. It is not acceptable. Of course it does not want to be played off against a special school, which also needs to be housed. For this to have gone on for this long is crazy. After all it has gone through, the Department should be able to say it will get it come hell or high water by September 2016.

It would not be fair or right for this to drag on for another year thereafter. Gaelscoil Phádraig is asking the Department to recognise that it has been wronged, not only by this Government but by its predecessors over 20 years. The school has been short-changed and is asking that special care and attention are shown and an effort is made to ensure the new building is completed by the end of 2016. This could be achieved with determination. That is the appeal being made by the school.

I also ask that the Department consider the DEIS status of Gaelscoil Phádraig, which will, I understand, apply for disadvantaged status again this year. There is no reason for the school's failure to secure DEIS status given that other schools with students from the same catchment area have such status. Gaelscoil Phádraig has been short-changed at two levels and the Government must recognise the wrongs done to it by showing fairness to the children in the school.

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