Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise in our national Parliament the concerns and issues of St. Fiach's national school in the small parish of Ballinacree in north Meath. I am very appreciative of the fact it is the Minister, Deputy Bruton, who is present and I thank him for that because, as a Meath man, he knows this area of the county well and knows how this little school is so integral to the way of life in north Meath. It is the most northern part of the county. This little village is made up of the school, the church, the community centre and Briody Beds, which is the main employer in the area. The people of Ballinacree are proud and resilient but that little school, which keeps the village alive, is in dire need of help and attention.

The school, which I visited yesterday, was built and opened in 1961, and the facilities which I inspected with the principal, Dr. Ann Bennett, have changed very little since that time. The changing rooms for the boys are adjoining out-of-date toilet facilities and are unhealthy. The lack of any resource facilities for the SNA teacher is a scandal. The classroom floors bear the scars from the turf-burning stoves, which were only recently removed. I do not think students in any other part of the country could envisage such a scenario. To participate in PE, gymnastics, school drama and assemblies, the children have to leave the school premises and walk to the nearby community centre. Until recently, this was a case of taking their lives in their hands because there were no footpaths connecting the two buildings and they were walking along a busy country road where trucks pass by on their way to the industrial units. As Dr. Bennett told me yesterday, the facilities she had when she taught in Botswana were better than those she has to work with in this little school since she arrived in 2011.

The fact it is a little school and located in the most rural part of north Meath should not conspire against it in terms of access and funding. This is quite a famous little school and two years ago ,it received international acclaim because All Blacks fly-half, Beauden Barrett, had attended primary school here when his family relocated from New Zealand for a while, and he even played Gaelic football with the school. This World Cup winner returned to Ballinacree recently and even performed the haka on the front lawn of the school. However, the facilities he saw did not meet world standards - they do not even meet basic health and safety standards, as matters stand.

The school applied recently for funding to construct additional rooms - a general purpose room and classroom facilities - and that application was refused on 10 March. This was despite the fact the school inspector and the senior medical officer in the HSE were in unison in terms of the dire need to progress the plans from a health and safety point of view. The school was awarded an additional teacher in 2011 but due to internal issues at the time, applications for the additional space were not progressed and as a result, the issue of the cramped facilities was compounded. The school's board of management has appealed to the Department to look at this retrospectively and work with it to achieve what is needed for the 94 pupils and six teachers.

The Minister will have prepared notes on behalf of his Department, which I appreciate. However, I appeal to him to look at the needs of this little school again, at what it has achieved and what it aspires to achieve. As Dr. Bennett said to me yesterday, the kids in this school want to kick football in their own parish, not in another one. As a fellow Meath man, I know the Minister will know what I mean by that. To do that, however, and for this community to continue to survive, they need the facilities to so do. I ask the Minister to please look again at this file in order that the opportunity for these kids to develop their critical thinking and to fulfil their thirst for knowledge in facilities fit for this age will become a reality.

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