John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that the Minister for Education and Skills has attended to take this Topical Issue debate. As he knows, the case of Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna in Knocklyon in my constituency of Dublin South-West dates back more than 20 years. I was elected as a councillor in 1999. A few years later, the question of a permanent site and school became a live issue. Scandalously, the complex and tedious transfer of title - I was involved in that as a councillor - has taken close to 15 years to resolve. To put it in context, four chief executives of South Dublin County Council passed through office in that time.

It is important to state that the issue of title is not the Department's fault. Until recently, the Department was reasonably powerless to advance the project of a state-of-the-art school for the pupils of Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna. The complex work has been handled, though.

I invite the Minister to visit the existing school and see the conditions in which its pupils, teachers and ancillary staff are housed. It is a tribute and testament to the commitment and vocation of the school's teachers and other staff that education of the highest standard is offered at Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna. They have operated out of prefabs for 21 years. They have had to repair roofs and ceilings as a result of fungal infections. The school has 245 pupils and a toilet facility is shared between 60 of them. As the Minister will have heard in media reports, the water tank freezes in winter, which means that there are no proper bathroom facilities for children. Rain means that no physical education can take place.

In 2015, the Government stated that no school would have a prefab for more than two years. Given that a quarter of schools that were due for construction in 2015 are still waiting for work to begin or their projects to go to tender, will the Minister consider fast-tracking this school project as a matter of urgency? In the intervening 15 or 20 years, the building projects at every school within a few square miles of Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna have been completed or are under way. St. Colmcille's, the local community school, has been built and expanded. Sancta Maria College, a local post-primary school, got a brand new building in that time. St. Colmcille's junior and senior national schools, the largest primary school project in the country, were finished some years ago. Firhouse Educate Together got a new school building and the new building for Gaelscoil na Giúise, which arrived on the scene many years after Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna, is under construction.

Gaelcoláiste na Phiarsaigh, a post-primary school, has been facilitated locally also and the sod has recently turned at Kingswood community school. The Department is also looking out for a school for Firhouse Educate Together post-primary school and has advanced school projects in Citywest. Does the Minister agree that the almost unique circumstances surrounding the wait for the commencement of this building project, including design and planning, means the process of commencing the project for a new school should start immediately? Will he commit to prioritising the advancement of the school project to ensure that a school of 21st century standards will be constructed as soon as possible and that the project commencement process will start as soon as he can make it happen?

See this speech in context