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

Many of us question how this project has been promised for ten years. The school's board of management agreed to double the number of children attending the school to almost 900. This is a large school yet half of it is not just located in prefabs - in case the Minister believes that - but, rather, in dark, mildewed buildings affected by mould and damp. These are the equivalent of Third World conditions. Parents of children with asthma report they have to regularly collect them from school early and that they miss out on schoolwork as a result. People wonder why - when we are told that there is a recovery and that the Government turned down the potential of billions of euro from Apple, etc. - there is no money for schools. How could building inflation increase so much in six months that a project which was included on the list but in November was removed from it by summer? There can be no conclusion other than there was a rush to get a load of projects on the building list before the general election. I assume there are other schools that have fallen off the list and that people have become cynical about it.

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