Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The issue of St. Mochta's school will be the subject of what I anticipate will be an extremely large public meeting in Clonsilla tonight. This is now one of the biggest issues in Dublin 15, which, as the Minister knows, is a vast and growing area. I know the Minister is meeting members of the school management and I hope the news is good in anticipation of that meeting. This was a ten-year project. It was promised to the community. The school management agreed to double its school population on the basis that it would get a new school building and several years later, it has been let down.

I raised this in a Topical Issue debate on 12 November 2015. I would like the Minister and other Deputies who were involved to address what was covered in the final paragraph of the reply on that day, which stated:

While it was not possible to include the projects [St. Mochta's and St. Patrick's schools] referred to by the Deputy in the current five-year building programme, I wish to advise the Deputy that the projects will be available for consideration for the new six-year plan...

However, five days later two Ministers at the time, the then Tánaiste, Deputy Burton, and the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, announced on 17 November that St. Mochta's was to be totally rebuilt with the project to proceed to construction in 2016. How, in five days, did it go from not being on the list to being on the list? However, the school board and the local population subsequently heard the school was not on the list at all. Was it ever really on the list for 2016? That is what people at tonight's public meeting will want to know.

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