Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is welcome that the census is rescheduled but I must ask whether the Government plays a blind bit of notice to the critical data it gathers, which allows us to plan, particularly in the area of school provision. Judging from my constituency, the Department of Education and the Government does not use the data.

I could name some of the patron school bodies and recite the numbers they have to deal with but none of them has a site. Sallynoggin Educate Together is on a temporary site that is too small and we have no idea when it will get a permanent site. We are not quite sure if the temporary site it has been given will be able to accommodate its numbers. Gaelscoil Laighean had to fight for years in order to get a permanent site but it is still on a temporary site. Dún Laoghaire Educate Together finally got a site, after years of campaigning, but it is still at an unsatisfactory temporary site. Booterstown National School is seeking to acquire a parish hall for an autism spectrum disorder class that is needed in the area but it cannot get any kind of decision from the Department of Education. At Clonkeen school in Deansgrange, the Government is allowing the Christian Brothers to sell all its playing fields to the detriment of the facilities needed in the school when there is a clear shortage of sites for schools in the area.

It appears we have all this data but they do not inform planning in school provision. That is certainly the case in my constituency and I suspect the same is true right across the country.

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