Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will happily explain the reality on the ground to the Minister. I had constituents this week who told me that their family had moved from Wicklow to Ashbourne. There are a lot of people moving to Ashbourne. The child needs to go into senior infants. He was offered junior infants in Gaelscoil na Mí, though he should be in senior infants. He was also offered junior infants in Garristown, a village in another county. That is not good enough and that child is not the only example. During the summer, there was a seven-year old child with a Slovakian mother and a Polish father who was told that he had to go to Gaelscoil na Mí, even though the family already had language difficulties. Gaelscoil na Mí is an excellent school and I am a huge fan of Gaelscoileanna, but they are not for everybody. What is happening at the moment is outrageous. A councillor from the Deputy's own party told me the other night that he got two kids from Ashbourne into Ratoath College for second level education. This is happening all the time and the local education welfare officer tells us this. What is needed urgently in Ashbourne is a new stream at primary level, preferably in the English language. It has to happen. There are houses being built there and nowhere for children to go to school from what we are hearing. We must also look at the area around Duleek and Drogheda as well where I believe the Department should be planning aggressively in terms of second level provision, because the capacity that is available in Drogheda and Navan will slowly become unavailable to large parts of County Meath if the issue is not dealt with.

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