Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's colleague Senator James Reilly has raised this issue in the Seanad. I will not repeat the points made on the overall shortage of places. Residents in the area in question, who have organised into a group, as the Minister correctly stated, have identified at least 12 children from Skerries alone in need of places at national school level. Only six may have places, with September almost on the horizon. It is a particular concern.

My main concern today, however, is that the report the Minister has given me on St. Michael's House has been given on numerous occasions previously. I am not blaming the Minister for that but the reality is that the site acquisition process has long been completed in the sense that Fingal County Council has said it proceeded as far as it can go. It has the site, it has completed all the negotiations and it states this issue is blocked — it is blocked — at the level of the technical assessors in the Department. We have been getting this report for over a year. The children in question are in school in an old farmhouse. They have been in it for over 15 years. The farmhouse would not even pass modern health and safety standards. Those concerned really need to know what is causing problems for the technical assessors and when the assessment is likely to be concluded. The council tells us this is the only thing standing in the way of the school finally being delivered.

See this speech in context