Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The specific building and preschool are linked with Holywell Educate Together national school. It was originally opened by the Fingal County Childcare Committee using under-utilised and non-used classrooms in a growing school. The facility now provides two sessions of ECCE morning and afternoon classes in the school. It is a preschool that is fully integrated with the existing school in a school which has a 68% non-Irish population, making it the 14th most diverse school in the country, although it does not have DEIS status. As far as I am concerned, this preschool is a model. It is taking in children and providing accessible child care, preschool hours, a wraparound service and after-school facilities at affordable prices for parents in the area. It employs seven local people and because it has had the premises and not had to rent rooms, in the oast year alone it has generated €25,000 which has been put back into in the school which is in a deprived area. It is a role model, but its future is in jeopardy because, as the Minister said, by 2018 the full complement of classrooms will have been filled. It is, therefore, looking for the Minister's assistance. His predecessor visited it. Will the Minister go out and look at this case and how the model can be rolled out to other schools?

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