Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. I welcome the fact that a site option has been identified and, as the Minister indicated, is being actively progressed. Hopefully, if I am joining the dots correctly, the site in question is the one currently at contract stage with the Department of Education and Skills though I understand the Minister is not in a position to confirm that. I welcome the fact the Department is in a position generally to enter into contractual commitments to purchase land with a view to accommodating schools and that the exhaustion of public funds in terms of commitments for school building does not apply to the acquisition of land. That is welcome.

There is an urgency about this. The school is moving to a split campus situation for the forthcoming school year, 2016-2017. There will be sufficient capacity across those two sites for one further school year - the 2017-2018 school year - but that is it then. At that point it will be in serious trouble. It is taking in two junior infant classes every year and there is growing demand for places at the school. It is in an area of very large population growth. There are a lot of young families in the Rochestown-Douglas area and there is a demand for this school. I ask the Minister to take a personal interest in this case to ensure the file does not gather dust, that the site is actually purchased and the next steps are then taken to move this through the process because when it comes to preliminary design, planning applications, tendering and so forth, to have this school going to construction next year is a challenge. I hope it can be co-located with the second level Educate Together school for the south suburbs area of Cork city which is opening in temporary accommodation at Nagle Community College this coming September. I welcome the Minister's commitment and ask him to take a personal interest and to see this project through.

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