Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important issue. Drogheda Educate Together Secondary School, Drogheda ETSS, is on Mill Road outside Drogheda. It currently has 110 students enrolled, an admissions cap of 72 for next year and 55 students on the waiting list. There is huge growth in the population in the area. Hundreds of houses are being built and there is major demand for education right where the school sits. The school has a three-year lease at present so there is no reason the Department of Education should not continue to sustain and support it in its present location, beside where all the families come from.

The key point is that the parents will not stand for the school being moved from this location. The school was on grounds adjacent to Coláiste na hInse at one stage and now it is on Mill Road. The Department, in its wisdom, proposes to relocate it a few miles away, on the grounds of yet another school, St. Oliver's, where I taught and which has more than 1,200 students. The Department proposes to take from St. Oliver's the recreation and amenity space its pupils and community enjoy and to put another school, a fabulous school, Drogheda ETSS, on the site. It will not wash or hold and the people will not accept it. Therefore, I urge the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, to enter negotiations with Educate Together, buy the site beside the school and do the business. That is what those affected want. It is our job as Deputies. Deputy Nash and I will work together to ensure we can deliver the school. What is happening is unacceptable and the parents will not accept it. I ask the Minister of State, whom I acknowledge is not ultimately responsible, to bring to the Minister the loud, clear and irrevocable message of the parents. They will not have the school moved for the third time. It is unacceptable that a school should be moved to four different locations before getting the site it so much wants. Houses have been built in the area and ten acres have been zoned for schools there so let us do the business.

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