Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this very important Topical Issue tonight. It is one on which I am sure the Ceann Comhairle will agree with me. There are three schools in the Curragh Military Camp. The Curragh post-primary school is a Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board school with approximately 170 pupils and to say the school building is Dickensian would be a fair description. It has great staff and pupils but they are operating in a building that has not been upgraded since the time the British were around. Across the road is the Curragh girls' primary school with a little over 100 pupils. Again, it is housed in a very old building with significant problems. A summer works application is in for roof repairs, but since it was made problems have emerged with heating and plumbing in the school. Down the road a little further but still within the camp is the Curragh boys' national school with 89 to 90 pupils. That school has made another summer works application to address a long-standing problem with its plumbing which is causing significant problems.

I called out to visit the principal of the Curragh boys' school last year. It happened to be just after the Minister's predecessor had opened the Educate Together primary school in Kildare town. Within the space of an hour and crossing the short distance from Kildare town to the Curragh Camp, I went from a brand new school with the best of provision for the children of Kildare town to a school with a bucket in the middle of the floor under a leaking roof. I saw a very big difference between the haves and the have-nots. It is incumbent on us to address the structural deficits in the three schools. There is a common denominator here. All the schools have great staff and pupils but an excellent education is being provided in sub-standard accommodation within the Curragh Camp, which is under the remit of the Department of Defence.

I want the Department of Education and Skills to develop a vision for the future provision of education in this area. I want the Department of Education and Skills to share my vision for a new school campus at primary and secondary level on a greenfield site in the Curragh. I have had initial discussions with my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Defence, Deputy Paul Kehoe, and flagged with him the deficit that is there and the need for an upgrade. This comes under his remit because there are ambitious plans for the Curragh Camp. The peace and leadership institute will be a fantastic development in the coming years as a result of significant investment by the taxpayer via the Department of Defence in the Curragh Camp itself. The freeing up of the three school buildings might well suit the Department of Defence and encourage it to offer us a greenfield site somewhere else. It could be argued that it is not really appropriate to have school provision at the heart of a military camp.

It would be much easier to talk to the Minister for Education and Skills and his officials about the provision of a new school building in this area if there was a greenfield site to start with. As such, I ask him to help me with discussions and that his officials would engage directly with their counterparts in the Department of Defence to talk about these issues and see if a solution can be found. To develop a primary and post-primary campus would address three schools that are currently in substandard accommodation and it would also address the very significant capacity issues for the greater Newbridge area, which I have raised with the Minister previously.

See this speech in context