John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the response. While I do not wish to shoot the messenger, it did not provide any clarity whatever. We are facing a crisis. In April next year, up to 200 children will not have a premises in which to be educated. A site has been identified in Bray, about which questions have arisen. I am not sure how long the process will take or what is happening. According to the Minister of State, an option for the location of a permanent site for North Wicklow Educate Together post-primary school "is being finalised". An announcement was made last year that a site had been identified. The school is not under the patronage of the Kildare Wicklow Education and Training Board, yet the ETB seems to have more information than Educate Together, which is bizarre to say the least.

Information is key, as is the fact that the school is well aware that some sort of temporary accommodation will need to be provided until the new school is constructed. Educate Together is conscious and aware of that requirement but it does not want to move the school into temporary accommodation on a site somewhere in north Wicklow. We do not know where the school will be located. Under an exhaustive process, three sites were initially identified, two of which were quickly ruled out as being totally inaccessible, leaving only the site we are discussing. The school is conscious that interim arrangements will be required. It wants prefabricated buildings erected on the site on which the school will be permanently based from April 2019 onwards, wherever that site will be. Some form of temporary accommodation must be provided on the site on which the purpose built school will be located.

What we need are clear timeframes and that is what is lacking in the Minister of State's nonsensical and disappointing statement. Educate Together needs answers, not the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board because the former and not the ETB is the patron. The principal, the school, the pupils and the people of north Wicklow, including me, need answers.

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