Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I hear the Deputy loud and clear. He wants St. Fergal's College, Rathdowney, to be provided with a PE hall in the interests of equity and he wants me to take that message back to the Minister, Deputy Foley. I will do that.

The current situation is that the existing additional schools accommodation scheme does not include provision for PE halls and yet the national development plan is a more than €100 billion capital scheme. In future iterations of the plan, or future schemes developed for the Department of Education, consideration will be made to include PE halls. Not just that, that they will include a PE hall build and modernisation programme to ensure students in all post-primary schools will have access to appropriate facilities in order to support PE provision, particularly in the context of the roll-out of PE as a leaving certificate subject.

I take the Deputy’s points that if we are going to have PE as a leaving certificate subject, the question arises as to how it can be done without having a PE hall in place; that there is a need for a PE halls in a country that is not always dry in order that students can participate in sports indoors; that having healthy students is part of the preventive health and public health programme for the country; and that it saves us money in the long term if students are getting their physical education in school. This applies to everybody, not just those students who are sporty and able to catch a ball. Plenty of sports can be done indoors – the kind of ones that I did – and are good for general health rather than those that are overly competitive or which can be done outside in a field. I see where the Deputy is coming from and I will take his comments back to the Minister and tell her what he has said today.

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