Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister will be aware, when the four-year schools capital programme was announced last year, there was to be an eight-classroom primary school established in the Newcastle-Rathcoole-Saggart schools planning area. While this announcement was welcomed, there was some surprise that the school was to be located down in the Citywest-Fortunestown end of the area, rather than, as everybody expected, in the Rathcoole-Newcastle end of it. One of the reasons that is important is there is very significant residential development taking place in Citywest, Rathcoole, Newcastle and Saggart, with more to come. We are already seeing, in Saggart in particular, a significant number of parents who are not guaranteed appropriate school places for their children in Holy Family national school next year. Up to 19 families could be affected. While some of the children could be accommodated in Scoil Chrónáin in Rathcoole, other families do not know at this point if they will have appropriate school places for their children. The question is whether the Minister is aware of this problem, he has spoken to schools in the area and he is willing to work with Opposition Deputies to try to resolve the issue to ensure, in the first instance, that all of the families who are unsure if they will have school places for their children next year will have them secured. We also need to look again at the figures underpinning the proposal for an eight-classroom school in the Citywest-Fortunestown end of the area to see if, in fact, we need two new schools, one in Citywest and one possibly in the Rathcoole end of the area from 2020 to absorb population growth in the two school planning areas.

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