Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The nub of the question was on what happened following patronage and following the announcement. A concrete example of where there needs to be more oversight and communication between the Minister's office and the forward planning section is Ballinteer Educate Together national school, which was announced as a primary school in 2012. A deal was negotiated between the Department and St. Tiernan's community school to house the school temporarily until it received planning permission for a permanent home. St. Tiernan's agreed because it was promised a PE hall but, five years later, there is no permanent home for Ballinteer Educate Together and no PE hall for St. Tiernan's.

It is the manner in which Ballinteer Educate Together school is learning about its future which is of the greatest concern. In November last year the principal, staff and parents learned of the Department's plans to move the school to the Notre Dame campus via a tweet. That is unacceptable. Last month, parents from Ballinteer heard by word of mouth from other people that a Gaelscoil would now be moving into the junior school at Notre Dame. Despite the fact that only 27 school days are left until the summer break and despite repeatedly requesting the layout of classrooms, Ballinteer Educate Together has not been guided through exactly how the move will work or whether it will happen in June, July or August, and it has not been afforded a visit to the new campus by the Department. To compound the departmental communications fiasco, when the principal recently rang to seek clarity, she was told the forward planning section was under pressure planning for other schools. It is not good enough and I appeal to the Minister to communicate with the forward planning section so that clarity can be provided.

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