Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. Schools are an investment in our future. We need to move away from patching up prefabs that have been there for ten, 20 or 30 years when they were only intended to be used for a few years. We need to invest in our schools and invest in the future and in our children and teachers, by providing good, accessible, reasonable school accommodation. I would like to see a specific time limit introduced for the Department to respond to principals. A common theme in representations I get from principals is that they are not being responded to in a timely manner. I do not just mean it being a case of weeks or months; in some cases, it can be years. It would be good to see the Department bring forward a specific timeframe in which it will respond to principals and they will no longer be ghosted. I invite the Minister to Rush in Dublin Fingal West to see some of these fantastic schools like St. Joseph's Secondary School and Rush National School. The staff are working in really appalling conditions but still doing a fantastic job.

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