Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being here today to answer my questions on a long-running and unacceptable situation which is affecting students, parents and teachers in Greystones Community College in my constituency. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the tremendous effort and hard work of teachers throughout this country as well as that of school staff, principals, secretaries and everyone in the Department of Education who is involved in getting our schools up and running and creating some sort of normality for our children. Keeping them in school is a huge service and we appreciate the effort of everybody involved. As a parent of young children I can really appreciate how important it is that our children are back at school and that we maintain a safe system that will allow them to stay there.

The Minister will be aware of the issue I am raising because I have written to her about it several times. In fairness, she has corresponded with me on it several times.

It concerns Greystones Community College. The Minister will know it is a brand new secondary school which had its first intake in August of this year. It had been planned that the secondary school would share accommodation with Greystones Community National School on a temporary basis in a new primary school building, but that building failed to open in September, as the Minister is aware. The school was built by Western Building Systems. I am sure the Minister can imagine the disappointment of children cycling or walking past a school every morning but not being able to go into it and not understanding why.

When the school building failed to open, the primary school stayed in its temporary accommodation at Greystones Rugby Club, where it has been for the past five years. At least it had a place to which it could return when it experienced the disappointment of not being able to move to the new school. However, Greystones Community College, which is a brand new school, did not have anywhere to fall back on. The management of the school did what it could. The students have been housed in Greystones Lawn Tennis Club, which is totally unsuitable accommodation. The students are in changing rooms and tennis club meeting rooms. It is totally unacceptable.

The Minister will know that all Deputies representing Wicklow have contacted her on this issue. To be fair, I credit all of those Deputies because we are trying to work together to seek a resolution on this issue. I appreciate the efforts made by the Department so far, but the school needs clarity. It is not acceptable for the school to be in its current accommodation week to week and not know where it is going. It is a very difficult time for children at the moment and we need to create as much of a sense of normality around school as possible, rather than their being in a situation such as this whereby they do not know where they will be after Christmas. The students, parents and management need a clear understanding of where the school will be after Christmas. Where will it be after Christmas? What steps will be taken by the Minister's Department to resolve the issue around the school building? When are the children of the schools likely to end up in the building? The building looks fine to me. There may be some difficulty with it, but I am not aware of that. If the Minister were to come back to me on that, I would appreciate it.

See this speech in context