Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach was Minister for Education and Science in 1999 when Holy Family national school, also known as Curraghmore national school, first applied for a new building. That €5 million project is now 37 months into a 12-month contract and there is no confirmed completion date. The buck-passing between the builder, the local authority and the Department of Education and Skills is not good enough. The rate of progress on the site is not good enough. There are 357 pupils and their families who desperately need this building project to be completed before school returns in September.

There are 16 classes in the school but only ten rooms. The problem for this school is not social distancing but where the children physically will sit to be educated. Last year, they were educated on three separate sites. One of those sites was in Kinnegad, which is a 40 km round trip for pupils. Since the Taoiseach was Minister for Education and Science in 1999, there have, by my count, been a further ten Ministers with the education portfolio. This is a national shambles, not a local crisis. I am asking the Taoiseach to intervene directly in this matter. If no solution is offered, I ask him to come down and explain to the parents of the children in those six classes what the plan is to educate them next year.

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