Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am very disappointed with the response on the issue of provision for Ashbourne. We have been waiting for this review for some time. The Minister has said that there is a need for more provision. I know that. As I understood it, the review was supposed to decide whether there should be another school in Ashbourne. I know that departmental officials have engaged with principals of schools in Ashbourne. I bumped into them last summer. The truth is that it is virtually impossible to expand the existing schools there. The Minister knows that and it is known that one of them certainly cannot be expanded due to where it is located. I was expecting an answer one way or the other, rather than more engagement on the issue. The engagement happened six months ago.

I received a query to my office today concerning primary school places in Ashbourne from people who received a council house there. Their children go to school elsewhere but their children cannot get a place at a school in Ashbourne. I received another email, on the day this matter arose at the Joint Committee on Education and Skills, from a constituent whose child could not get into a primary school in Ashbourne. It must be said - and perhaps this is why the Department does not seem to be worried about the issue - that this problem often arises for people with eastern European or African backgrounds. These children are Irish citizens, are resident here and are as entitled to satisfaction of their constitutional right to education as anyone else. What is happening here is utter discrimination from the Minister's Department. Because these children generally come from families which do not speak English at home, it does not matter and officialdom does not seem to care about them. That is a fact. If the situation was that children from Irish backgrounds were shouting and screaming about this, we would hear a lot more about it from the Minister. This has to change. There is a particular problem in Ashbourne and the Department is turning a blind eye to it.

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