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

The Minister will forgive me if I do not express full confidence in his forward planning section. To be honest, until recent months the Department of Education and Skills was only taking into account local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, developments, which were specific developments which received special funding for roads and infrastructure from the Government. It did not take into account all of the planning permissions and rezoning that had occurred in Dunshaughlin, for example. It simply was not working in the correct way. The system was changed subsequently. Meath County Council was quite shocked at the requests it received from the Department. It is a fact that while many children from various backgrounds are affected by the shortage of primary school places in Ashbourne, the majority of those who contact me are people from families which have a language other than English as a first language and who do not have access to information. These people, for their own reasons, are not prepared to send their children to a Gaelscoil. I raised the issue of a particular family on television in September 2016. They live in Ashbourne; one parent was Slovak and the other was Polish. They were trying to teach their child English but were offered a place in a Gaelscoil. This is what is happening and it is about time that the Minister opened his eyes to it. If it is happening in Ashbourne, it is happening in other towns as well. We must make sure that everybody, from every background, is afforded proper provision for their education and that the Department knows exactly who is moving into towns so that we can provide a proper education for them. Every time I raise this issue, I am contacted by another person in the same situation, by pure coincidence. This is what is happening on the ground. The demand is there.

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