Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for this motion. In the short time available to me - just over two minutes for an intervention - I want to raise school accommodation in the constituency I represent. I have time to mention just two schools, but there are others and I have written to the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, and to the Minister, Deputy Foley, about them. The first school is in north Leitrim. It is a small school in a place called Leckaun. The original application for additional accommodation for this school was made in 1993. That is 30 years ago. The current principal was in third class at the time. Last August they were told that the application was at the final stage of assessment. This school has four teachers with two classrooms and each classroom is 30 sq. m in size with 25 pupils. That is about 1 sq. m per pupil. It gives the Minister of State some idea. The pupils are packed like sardines. The special education teacher is teaching in the corridor and when the teacher who teaches English as an additional language, because there are a number of Ukrainian students there, is there for ten hours a week, they are in the office. When they are teaching there is no space for a principal or a school secretary. It is a great school in a vibrant community but there are real health and safety issues and they must be addressed with additional accommodation. I ask the Minister of State to please give it his best attention.

At the other end of the county there is Scoil Mhuire in Carrick-on-Shannon, which is waiting and waiting. Is it one of the delayed school building projects? I do not know. Nobody seems to know what is happening and it is causing huge concern in schools and among school communities. In 2013, two schools amalgamated. Since then, the number of pupils has doubled and schools are struggling to cope across two campuses.

A technical report from the Minister of State's Department has painted a damning picture of conditions at the school: undersized classrooms with major defects, poor ventilation, water ingress under the floors and cracks in the walls. Storage spaces and corridors have been converted into special-education rooms. The school is on two campuses and both are too small for a new school to be built on. Parents, teachers, boards of management, pupils, the local authority and literally everybody in Carrick-on-Shannon is saying a new primary school is a necessity and must be delivered.

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