Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I know that the Minister for Education is not available, but the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, is my constituency colleague and the Minister's party colleague. I know he is familiar with this issue, but I will lay out some of the detail here. We need to discuss the need to secure the future of the site and buildings of Clonalvy national school. This was a national school in rural County Meath that was closed in 2019. It is important to say it was not closed due to a natural lack of demand or need or lack of children of school-going age in the area. There were artificial reasons. The demand is there for a primary school. It was there and it still is there.

My understanding is that the diocese divested of the school in February 2022. The Minister of State might confirm that. I have a concern about the nature of the pre-closure consultation by the diocese or by the Department. My sense in all of this is there was never support to maintain the status quoor to return to the status quobefore 2019. However, there was always, in my opinion, the opportunity if the right proposition was put forward for the continuation of a primary school. There is a lack of diversity in the area generally in terms of patronage. It is now the case that the school is on the open market. It is for sale. A proposal was made after some time from the community after significant with ourselves as public representatives and particularly within the community. They have confirmed that the Louth and Meath education and training board, LMETB, is interested in acquiring the site for a community national school and an education campus. I think there is huge potential there.

I attended a public meeting - the Minister of State sent his apologies - that was very well attended. The demand is there. People are interested. They will avail of it. The LMETB as a patron is confident that it would make a success of this. It has done similarly elsewhere. The question is how to join those pieces together with the Department and the Minister. I believe the Minister and the Department need to lead on this. Is it a case of a sale or a transfer? What will the nature of the transaction be? Ultimately, it is important that action happens quickly. Time is of the essence here. The site and buildings are for sale. The price is probably going up day by day. It is important that we have action on this.

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