Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a very specific question for the Minister of State. I hope to hear good news. Chuaigh mé chuig Gaelscoil Uí Earcáin i bhFionnghlas an mhí seo caite. Is scoil iontach í le hiarscoláirí agus múinteoirí iontacha. The school is doing a great job in a very poor building. Schools are often very slow to talk about the failings of their premises because they want to project the best possible impression. They want to attract children and they want parents to have confidence in the school. Before I say anything else, I will say that I have full confidence in the teachers and pupils of Gaelscoil Uí Earcáin. What is letting them down is the Department of Education not providing for the building they are in. The school is the former De La Salle school. It is a school I know quite a lot about. I attended it myself and my grandfather was on the committee that raised the funds to establish the school along with the second level school that was established when free education was introduced in Ireland.

The Minister of State might be surprised, as I was, that the windows are the same as those my grandfather fundraised for. They are wooden windows. Where there are holes in those windows, they are covered with cardboard. Where they are not covered in cardboard, they are covered in bits of plywood. Walking around the edge of the building, we would think it is an abandoned site that the Minister might build houses on. Instead, every day, children go in and out of the school and do a great job learning our national language and getting a great education. The Minister for Education has given me an update in recent months by way of parliamentary questions that this school is part of the accelerated delivery of architectural planning and tendering, ADAPT, programme and that a design team will be appointed for a 16-classroom extension and for two special education needs, SEN, classrooms, which I know the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, will be very pleased about as well.

The school, though, is still unsure where it is on the project timeline. It has very little confidence after having waited many years. Any additional information the Minister of State can provide us with would be very welcome indeed. The classrooms are old and do not have toilets. The logical place to put such toilets would be where the windows are failing. We could probably get money to put in new windows, but we would end up ripping them out in a year or two to allow the toilet extensions to be put in. What is required here is a proper new school, as promised.

I believe in the necessity of dealing with embodied carbon and retaining as many of our buildings as possible, and big chunks of this building could be saved, repurposed and reused. It is regrettable that a Deputy must come before this House to talk about the arrangements of toilets in a school. Our national Parliament should not be dealing with these issues. I do this, however, out of a sense of frustration that we have not been able to progress this issue any further. I hope the Minister of State is as committed as I am to the progression of this school. I also hope that we can get good news for a great school and, as I said, its great pupils as well.

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