John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise the issue of North Wicklow Educate Together secondary school, which is based in Bray. It is a voluntary secondary school under the patronage of Educate Together. That patronage was awarded in 2015.

The school is in temporary accommodation in the old Presentation College in Bray and that lease is due to expire on 30 April next year. The Minister made an announcement last year that arrangements had been put in place. They had identified a site in Bray town centre and that announcement was made last June.

Since that time, no information has come from the Department. North Wicklow Educate Together is completely in the dark. Some concerns have been raised regarding the site identified on the site of Bray Institute of Further Education in the town centre. That site is controlled by Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board. There have been some controversies regarding the former chief executive officer of the education and training board and these are being investigated. Unfortunately, it appears that North Wicklow Educate Together is somehow being implicated in or held up by these investigations.

A crisis is looming. There are 200 students in a school that could not be described as being fit for purpose. It started enrolling in September 2016 and is due to enrol its third year in September when there will be 200 pupils in the current premises. The private lease on the building will expire in April 2019 and the school principal and the parents and future parents of students of the school do not know where the school will be accommodated after that time.

I and other Deputies representing Wicklow have made numerous approaches to the Minister. The five Wicklow Deputies sent a joint letter to him and I have spoken to him on numerous occasions but no information has been forthcoming on the site that has been identified. Some concern has been raised by Bray Institute of Further Education, which believes it was not consulted in the process of identifying the site. We are now caught in a vacuum and this is not being helped by the lack of information from the Minister, who has ultimate responsibility, or his Department. Representatives of North Wicklow Educate Together met officials from the Department last week on foot of a meeting that had taken place the previous day with, I understand, the new CEO of the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board. No information was given to Educate Together on what had been discussed with the CEO of the education and training board.

We have a principal, 200 pupils and their parents who do not know where their school will be in April next year. It is unfortunate that the Minister is not in the Chamber to provide some clarity or a timeframe on when the parents, children and staff of the school can expect to get into their new school, wherever it is located. I hope the Minister of State will be able to outline some of the timeframes and give clear information

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