Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Members of the board of management at St. Mochta's school contacted me at the end of August to express their understandable shock and disappointment after the Department of Education and Skills wrote to it to advise that the rebuild of the school was being postponed until next year at the earliest. St. Mochta's is an excellent school with brilliant and dedicated teachers and a very supportive school community of parents and pupils who come from up to 52 different countries as well as the old community from the old village of Clonsilla.

The school has many prefabs on a four-acre site. There is an extension from the year 2000 which the Department declared to be unfit for purpose in 2012. The late Brian Lenihan was involved in the negotiations whereby the school community agreed to more than double the size of the school to take account of the extra demand for school places in this part of Dublin 15. They were promised, before the crash, that the buildings would be attended to and the project, which is still awaited ten years later, would get under way.

As a public representative, I fought hard as did other public representatives in the area to support the school community to ensure the rebuild would commence in 2016. I make no apologies for lobbying continually and constantly, as did other Deputies and public representatives in the area. I cannot understand how the Minister could see any justification for the delay to these building works.

It was agreed in 2015 that the school would proceed. What has now happened is totally unacceptable. When the Labour Party was in government before the general election, major progress was made with the nationwide school building and the replacement of prefabs, notwithstanding the severe economic crisis.

Is the Minister seeking an extra capital allocation to ensure that this and other school projects are built as soon as possible? What is the reason for the delay?

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