Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

This morning I would like to discuss Blessington Community College and its accommodation needs, not just for the upcoming school year but also in the future. Blessington Community College is the only secondary school in Blessington. It has 627 students currently enrolled. The number has doubled in the past nine years. It is an incredibly popular and successful school. Its projected intake for 2023 is 709 students, which is an increase of 82 students on the current intake. The enrolment of the school is predicted to be 900 by September 2027. The growth is based on actual figures from the 11 feeder schools in the area. The principal has gone around to each of the feeder schools and found out how many children are there and forward planned on that basis. This is a school that has experienced incredible growth in student numbers and that will continue to be the case.

Currently, the school is a labyrinth of Portakabins that have been added on over the years as the school has grown. The canteen was decommissioned in 2022 due to health and safety reasons and there is currently no canteen. There is no sports hall. The sports area has been reduced, as have the areas for science laboratories and home economics.

The school itself, despite being very popular and successful, is finding it difficult to meet the needs of the students. The thing is, a new school build was announced in 2018. Obviously, everyone in the school community, including the parents, students, teachers and principals were delighted to hear that announcement, but there has been no progress on it since 2018. There has not been a single movement towards turning the sod on that school. There are two issues I would like the Minister of State to address. The first is the very short-term immediate problems that are facing the school. What is the school going to do in 2023 with the students who have been enrolled, because it does not have capacity for them at the moment? I understand that the Department has granted an ASA for an additional six Portakabins to go onto the site. Unfortunately, the school has no timeline as to when that will happen. It is now March, and as the Minister of State is aware, these projects can take considerable time. The school is starting to get concerned, as are the parents, that those buildings will not be in place for August in order to have that intake coming in. If the Minister of State could provide a timeline on the delivery of the temporary emergency accommodation that is required for the school, that would be very useful.

The second issue is the build itself. First we have to deal with the emergency situation, but the school does need a new building. The Department initially said that it was looking at a 650-student school building, which would not even meet the current needs. The school wants a 1,000-student school building. My understanding is that the Department is considering that and a review is under way. I ask the Minister of State to give me some indication as to where that review is at, when the school will be notified of the outcomes of that review and a tangible timeline for when the school will see those buildings actually put in place to enable the school to plan for the future.

See this speech in context