James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, for taking this Topical Issue. My question relates to the availability of school places in north Kildare. As the Minister of State is aware, north Kildare is in the heart of the commuter belt and has a growing population. As always, there are growing pains. This is not new, but it does remind me of the early noughties when we had this situation before in 2005. Some 20 years later, I had hoped it would not recur, but unfortunately it has.

If I look around my constituency, I will start with Naas Community College, where I was chair of the board for the past five years, where the principal, Ciarán Keegan, does his level best to accommodate as many students as he can, but he has to turn people away. In Maynooth there are two new buildings, Maynooth Post-Primary School and Maynooth Community College, which were both built on the Moyglare Road in recent years. The project involves two brand-new schools side by side.

Their construction is possibly the largest investment in education at second level that the State has ever made. They only opened a couple of years ago, yet they are already oversubscribed.

A new school is awaited in Prosperous. It has not opened yet but it is due to be constructed. Three schools are coming together in Celbridge, which is a project that I have championed. There have been multiple school investments around the constituency, which I welcome. However, my concern is that, even with these projects, we will still be far behind the supply of school places we need.

My office and I have been inundated in recent weeks with parents crying out for help and saying they cannot get places in Naas, Maynooth, Kilcock or Clane and asking me about what can be done to help them. One of the actions I hope we can take is to plan ahead. Will the Minister of State advise on what the forward planning unit in the Department of Education is doing in this regard? Many parents have contacted me. The town of Clane, for example, has one secondary school and a couple of primary schools, with a few more in the hinterland. Thankfully, there has not been an issue to date. This year, though, there were 330 applications for the 210 places available, meaning that 120 people were left waiting. This came as a shock to parents because they had never experienced it before, but it should not have come as a shock to the Department of Education, which has access to primary school numbers, Central Statistics Office, CSO, census figures and other demographic metrics. As a result, I would have expected the Department to have been in a position to acknowledge, anticipate and respond to demand.

I have mentioned two brand new schools in Maynooth. Enrolment for first year in Maynooth Post-Primary School is 170 students and enrolment in Maynooth Community College, which is located next door, is 170, totalling 340 places. However, there are still 80 children waiting per school, totalling 160 at least. I do not have the exact figures for Naas, but Naas Community College, Naas CBS, St. Mary's College, Gael-Choláiste Chill Dara and Piper's Hill College are heavily oversubscribed. This is not a new situation for Naas, having lasted for several years. I get calls at this time every year about a lack of places, with parents saying that their children are way down the list in 120th, 150th or 180th place. When children are put on a list, they are sometimes subscribed to multiple schools and lists thin out as it gets closer to September, but parents suffer considerable anxiety while waiting to see whether the lists are oversubscribed or whether there are duplicate applicants. As information comes out, students or families make up their minds and choose places or the schools choose them, but this does not always happen and, unfortunately, some pupils are left behind. That is no comfort to those waiting anxiously at this time every year, though. The problem is predictable.

Kilcock has the same issue. Scoil Dara still has a waiting list of 77 students after the second round offers were made and the schools attempted to whittle down the number.

I have given a cross-section of entirely predictable issues in Clane, Naas, Kilcock, Maynooth, Leixlip and Celbridge. There are large growth plans for all of these areas. We need to build houses and expand the population's accommodation, which the Government is doing through Housing for All, but we must keep pace. We were in this situation before in the 2000s, so it is disappointing that we are in it again now. I hope that the Government has a plan to address it.

I thank the Minister of State and look forward to his response.

See this speech in context