Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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Will the Minister for Education and Science come to the House?

Rory O'Hanlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Ceann Comhairle)
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The Chair does not know the answer to such questions.

Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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Without wishing to detract from the position of the Ministers of State who are present, I object to the Minister's decision not to come before the House.

The matter I raise also concerns an empty building. The Minister for Education and Science has refused to accede to the demand made by parents of children in Naas that the new 16 classroom school in the town be fully opened for pupils in September this year. The background to this astonishing situation is that the four well established national schools in Naas are bursting at the seams with class sizes of up to 32 pupils and play areas packed with prefabricated buildings. More than 400 children are being taught in this type of unsuitable and, allegedly, temporary accommodation and for many of them prefabs will be the only type of school accommodation they will ever experience. As we speak, further prefabricated buildings are being added to existing schools. Despite this, 40 children have been denied places in Naas schools this year because they are overflowing and unable to take further pupils.

A long and sustained campaign mounted to have a new national school in Naas was successful and a new school with 16 classrooms was opened earlier this year. At this point, however, the logic of a lunatic asylum took over. The Education Act gives parents the right to send their children to the school of their choice and individual schools the power to adopt their own enrolment policies. The Minister and the planning section of her Department in Tullamore are seeking to deny these rights to the parents in Naas and the board of the new school, Scoil Bhríde. The Minister restricted enrolment in the new school to two infant classes, a practice she described as the norm. In response to a parliamentary question, however, she was unable to indicate another school where this approach had been taken.

The Minister informed me in a written answer that the existing schools had sufficient places, whereas her Department has confirmed that more than 40 eligible children cannot be accommodated in Naas schools. The Minister of State should address this contradiction. The Minister recently informed the principal of Scoil Bhríde that the 40 surplus pupils can be enrolled in the new school and any children moving into the area during the school year may also be enrolled. It appears from this statement — I have copies of the relevant letters — that other classes, apart from infant classes, will partially open but the staff required to open all the classes will not be provided and children who live across the road from the school will not be allowed to enrol.

I demand that the messing and uncertainty cease, the Minister allow Scoil Bhríde to establish its an enrolment policy that would enable it to open fully in September for all 16 classes, as it is entitled to do under the Act, and the parents be afforded their right under the Education Act to send their children to the school of their choice. What should have been a good news story for the Minister and the parents, pupils and teachers of Naas has turned into a crazy nightmare scenario in which children in the town are packed into unfit prefabricated buildings while a new state-of-the-art, 16-classroom primary school provided by the parents' taxation lies idle. I ask the Minister to apply her renowned common sense to this issue and open the new school fully in September.

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I am grateful for the opportunity of outlining to the House, on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, the actions being taken by the Department of Education and Science with regard to the enrolments of the new primary school in Naas.

Scoil Bhríde national school is a new school which opened in September 2005. It currently accommodates two junior infant classes and when fully occupied it will operate as a two-stream, 16-classroom school. To enable it develop in this manner, it can only enrol two junior infant classes annually. This incremental development is common to all newly established schools to ensure that a shortage of accommodation at the school is avoided by over-enrolment in the early stages and, crucially, that the enrolments and staffing levels in other schools in the area, from which older pupils would inevitably be drawn, are not adversely affected. Notwithstanding this position and as an exceptional matter, the school has been given approval to enrol three junior infant classes for the next school year on the grounds that this will not impact negatively on the other schools in question.

Typically, a new school commences in temporary accommodation, which is provided incrementally thereafter to meet the school's junior infant intake level each year in the context of junior infant accommodation available in other schools in the area. A new school would have achieved a certain sustainable growth level without affecting other schools before transferring to its permanent accommodation. Its developmental curve would continue on this basis until all its accommodation is in use.

If a building is available for the school in question at inception, it does not mean that an orderly growth can be abandoned given the effect excessive enrolments will have on other schools in the area which have also been funded by the taxpayer. While enrolment policies are a matter for school authorities, the Department of Education and Science expects the enrolment polices of individual schools to complement the demand for pupil places in an area and, as in this case, to assist the growth of the new school in an orderly fashion. This is in the best interests of the schools, pupils and wider community alike.

Fundamentally, the existing schools, which have served the community well, particularly by obliging with extra pupil places when there was severe pressure for such places in recent years, now have a certain level of accommodation and teaching allocations in place. This cannot be ignored because a new school and new building have come on stream which will, in their own right, cater for the continuing growing needs of the area, as was always the Department's intention. The new school will of course be expected to cater for the small number of pupils in classes higher than infants for whom no place is available in the existing established schools in the town. The new school will be expected to cater for the small number of pupils in classes higher than infants for whom no place is available in the existing established schools in the town. The Department is confident that, between them, the primary schools in Naas can meet the needs of the increasing schoolgoing population in the town. I hope my reply was of some benefit to the Deputy.

Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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It is madness.