Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for putting down this matter. It is an important area and I join with the Deputy in acknowledging the valuable work that is carried out at St. Michael's House special school, Skerries.

I am happy to clarify the position in respect of the development of permanent accommodation for St. Michael's House special national school.

The school was established in 1982 and is currently located in a rented building with temporary accommodation in Hackettstown, Skerries. My Department is committed to providing a permanent accommodation solution and in that regard, a project to deliver a new school building for St. Michael's House special school on a greenfield site has been included in the Department's six-year capital programme. It is planned to provide a new building for St. Michael's special school to accommodate a 14 classroom school expandable to 16 classrooms, to include classes for pupils with mild general learning difficulties, autistic spectrum disorder, multiple disabilities and severe-profound disabilities.

My Department is working closely with Fingal County Council in accordance with the memorandum of understanding in relation to the acquisition of a suitable site to facilitate the school building project.

The site acquisition process for this school has been ongoing for some time. Initial efforts were focussed on acquiring land in the vicinity of the school's current location which was preferred by the school authorities. However, efforts in that regard were unsuccessful and subsequently the current site option was identified. The acquisition process was subsequently paused for some time while my Department engaged with the school authorities regarding potential alternative accommodation which was available at the time. However, based on the outcome of this engagement, the site acquisition process re-started and agreement was reached with the relevant landowner in respect of the proposed acquisition. This acquisition is currently at conveyance stage.

I wish to confirm that my Department is committed to progressing this project and will continue to liaise with Fingal County Council and the school authorities to achieve this.

The acquisition process for a permanent site is under way. My Department is aware of the limitations of the current temporary accommodation and every effort is being made to progress the permanent accommodation for the school as quickly as possible.

That is for the purpose of putting on the record the history of the matter and where we are at. At a personal level, I am eager to move this forward. If there may be areas where we can work together to make this happen, I would be happy to do so. The Deputy asked for a timeframe. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to give the timeframe because of the conveyance issue but I am aware parents want certainty, staff want to know when this will happen and the Deputy also spoke of the opportunity to grow the school population. It may require meeting with relevant officials sitting around a table. Deputy Brendan Ryan's constituency colleagues, my own party colleagues, have been on to me as well on this issue. It is not just because it is a public issue that appeared in the media today - Deputy Brendan Ryan has raised this on numerous occasions. I want to give my personal commitment to do whatever it takes to do this. It is not acceptable to be in this position for over 30 years but, unfortunately, things happen. The Deputy talked about his colleagues being in positions previously, a site was identified and things did not happen. Unfortunately, that can happen. It is a slow process. At the same time, if there are areas where we can work together, I would be happy to sit down with the Deputy and the relevant officials to ensure that we keep this on a live agenda.

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