Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for attending to discuss this important issue, namely, the urgent need for a new building at Cavan Institute. As he will probably be aware, Cavan Institute provided a virtual tour of its impressive college in recent months. None of himself, the Minister, Deputy Harris, or their Department need to be convinced of the legitimacy of the argument for a new building. However, it has been on the Department of Education's construction list for almost a decade. Of course, we have seen the fantastic delivery of new schools across the Cavan-Monaghan constituency by the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley. I am thinking of the Holy Family School in Cootehill, which she visited last week to see the brand new €12 million investment there, and the recent doubling in capacity at Bailieborough Community School as well as Virginia College. Last week, she announced the doubling in size of Coláiste Dún an Rí in Kingscourt.

The same commitment to a new building for Cavan Institute is now required. If our secondary schools are doubling in capacity, Cavan Institute must be in a position to respond to that need for further education. There are demands, but as the Minister of State can imagine, the doubling in size of our secondary schools will require a tenfold increase at Cavan Institute if it is to respond to the number of students passing through them.

Cavan Institute was established in 1985 and has grown to become one of the largest post leaving certificate, PLC, colleges in the country. It is important to recognise that Cavan Institute provides further education not just for Cavan and Monaghan, but the entire Border region. A new building was built in 2006 to increase capacity to 420 students. As the students moved into it that year, though, the institute's number of enrolments was at 700. The need to increase the size of the new building could be seen. Since then, Cavan Institute has been leasing multiple premises across Cavan town to deliver 70 full-time and part-time courses because it had outgrown its new building even before it moved in.

This is a critical time. Leases are expiring and commitments are required from the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to renew the leases, but I believe that the Department must make a leap of faith and commit to a new building. We do not want to see Cavan Institute and Cavan and Monaghan Education and Training Board, CMETB, signing up to leases for the next ten or 15 years when what they need is a new building. Some of the buildings that Cavan Institute has had to lease for teaching and learning are in a poor state of repair and not fit for purpose in these modern times.

In 2014 and 2015, Cavan Institute was approved for inclusion on the Department of Education's new buildings list and it was the intention to deliver a new building. I hope that the Minister of State can give us some idea of the timeframe for that. It has been on the buildings list for almost a decade. It has far outgrown its current infrastructure. The college was built for 420 students. Today, it has an enrolment of more than 1,100 students.

See this speech in context