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

The committee the Taoiseach is talking about also deals with social affairs and equality. A week or two ago, I raised the issue of St. Mary's Boys' National School in Booterstown with the Taoiseach. For months it has been seeking to get sign-off from the Government on an attempt to purchase the parish hall, which the parish is willing to sell, for an autism spectrum disorder, ASD, unit. At a large public meeting last night, the school community pointed out that there is a deficiency of 66 ASD places for the entirety of our area. Huge amounts of money are being spent on transporting people out of the community for special needs support because it is not there in the community. The school is asking that the Department would make a decision to provide this ASD unit by purchasing the parish hall. It is also asking that the Department provide assembly facilities for the school, which it lacks.

Another school that is losing most of its sports' facilities, Clonkeen College in Deansgrange, is still campaigning to ask the Government to prevent the Christian Brothers from selling off its playing fields to a property developer. Those playing fields are needed, not least for the ASD unit it has, but they are being sold off by the Christian Brothers in a school funded by public money.

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