Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This has been going on since 2010. I will simplify it for the Minister of State, that he might bring it back to the Department. The first thing I will do today is write to the Comptroller and Auditor General about why taxpayers' money is going to be wasted.

The school has been abandoned in recent years but the Department is going to put taxpayers money into it now. Holy Trinity is the Protestant school, but if this was a Catholic school it would not happen. Because it is a small Protestant school the Department is taking advantage of the Protestant community in Westport. I call on the Minister today to abandon the idea and to find another place for the school in Westport that has a problem. It should start the new build on the Protestant school that has been ongoing since 2010. What is going on in the Department of Education is a scandal. I do not know how it could even think about doing this. How could it think about doing up an old building that has been abandoned for three years, spending taxpayers' money on it and then knocking it again and building a new school on it?

There is something wrong in the public service in this country at the moment. I am going to write to the Comptroller and Auditor General today to ask him to investigate how we could allow taxpayers' money to be wasted on a building that is condemned, one that will be knocked and rebuilt. The Department is now going to put money into it, knock it again, and build a new school. There is something very wrong - something rotten - in the Department of Education. It is wrong. I hear senior Ministers lecturing about what is going on in Israel. What is going on in Mayo is not right. It is not right what is being done to the Protestant community. I call on the Department of Education and the Government today to build the Protestant school in Westport. Let us have equality.

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