David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I brought this up last week on Question Time and I was very pleased with the response the Minister gave at the time. The reason I brought it up was that a number of people in growing communities had contacted me because, now we have come out of the pandemic, many youngsters in some of these communities have nowhere to go in the evening time. I acknowledge a huge amount of work has been done, but the issue is that there are primary schools in these communities that are closed every evening at 3.30 p.m. My argument is these should be open and made available to the public. I acknowledge the circular that was issued in 2005. Much work was done by the Minister in 2017 and guidelines were issued at that stage. Much of the heavy lifting has been done. What I am arguing for is that these guidelines should be reissued. The Minister of State with responsibility for community development could engage with the Department of Education and with communities and add his voice to this issue to make these schools available. Many obstacles were identified in 2017 and responses put in place. I am looking forward to the Minister of State's response.

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