Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

This is also related to education and schools and I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, for dealing with it. I was informed that the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, would not be available today. I accept that and trust that the Minister of State will relay my comments and requests back to her.

Since I was elected I have been engaging with parents in north Wicklow, especially in Greystones, Delgany, Kilcoole and Newtownmountkennedy. These are areas that have undergone quite a large population increase. A lot of the new housing we are seeing is being built in the north Wicklow area and it is good to see housing being built. Every time I go there canvassing there are new houses and new people moving in. That is good and I welcome that. However, my concern is we are not keeping pace with the provision of the services that go with housing. We often focus on making sure there is water, power and roads but we sometimes forget about those other services that make a house a home, one of which is school places.

We have a number of schools in Greystones. I have been meeting with parents, parent groups, principals and students over the past three to four years. One of those schools is Temple Carrig, which is a beautiful school. My nephews went to school there. It has a capacity of about 750 but at the moment it is operating at in or around 900, so it is well over capacity. The school is somewhere through the process of getting the nod from the Department to apply for planning permission for an extension.

I will relay to the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Foley, the urgency attached to that.

For the past three to four years, we have gone through the process of being short of school places. It has been a real pressure on parents and children who hope to go to those schools, in addition to siblings, teachers and everybody involved. We have this scramble every year. Greystones Community College is another school in Greystones. There is planning permission for a 1,000-unit school, which is fantastic, but I suspect that is delayed somewhat and that we will experience a shortage of school places again. I know we will experience it this year, but we will have it next year and the year after. I think that school is supposed to be delivered in quarter 2 of 2025. We are now in quarter 1 of 2024. With the best will in the world, and all the shovels in the world, that school will not be up and running by quarter 2 of 2025. I suspect we are looking at later so we will have this school pressure again.

There are a number of other schools. St. David's is a beautiful school that has undergone a full refurbishment. I was there last week. It has an absolutely beautiful finish and is a credit to the Department, and the staff and community there, but it is already at capacity. This affects the whole hinterland of Greystones town and the areas that make up the Greystones municipal district. A little further down the road, Coláiste Chraobh Abhann in Kilcoole has also got a planning permission somewhere in the process but we do not know when that will go out to tender. The problem is each school is putting pressure on the others because in areas such as Newtownmountkennedy and Roundwood, which is even further out in County Wicklow, pressure is being put on Kilcoole and Kilcoole puts pressure on the three schools in Greystones. Temple Carrig needs its planning permission and Greystones Community College needs that permanent new-build 1,000 pupil school.

I request the Minister of State to relay this to the Minister. I have done so myself but I want to put on the record that we need to prioritise the assessment of the Greystones Community College tender, and get that contract awarded and that school built as quickly as possible. The Department needs to respond to Temple Carrig, which is leading on this project, to give it the go-ahead to apply for planning permission for that badly needed extension.

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