Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for attending. I thank the Chair for allowing me to raise this important issue concerning the provision of funding to enable the provision of vital additional accommodation at my old alma mater, Saint Brigid's national school, Ballynacargy, County Westmeath, the roll number of which is 01731U.

An application was made to the Minister's Department for funding under the devolved capital works scheme in respect of the small schools scheme 2007. The scheme allows a maximum grant of €484,000 to carry out works that would cost approximately €600,000. Unbelievably and somewhat bizarrely, and to the amazement of everyone, including the board of management, parents, principal and staff, the funding application was rejected due to financial constraints. As I understood it, schools with absolute and demonstrated needs were approved.

In the era of the Celtic tiger, in which the fruits of our economic success should be allocated to provide decent, adequate, warm and modern accommodation to give our children a good start in academic life, the Department found it was not essential to meet the needs of in excess of 90 children in Ballynacargy national school. The board of management and teachers spent many hours planning, deliberating and consulting with regard to their initial application and subsequent appeal. For the past few years, the teachers have diligently attended in-service days devoted to the implementation of the revised curriculum and returned to the school to try to implement the new approach, yet they find their attempts to implement it are handicapped severely due to inadequate space and resources.

The 92 children in the school are currently accommodated in four classrooms of 30 sq. m while the recommended size of such rooms is from 48 sq. m to 60 sq. m. The school, which is classified as disadvantaged, but with no concessionary post, has a full-time resource teacher accommodated in a converted cloakroom leading to the boys' toilets. The learning support teacher, whose post — rated as 0.9 — is almost full-time, is accommodated in a room that the school built from its own resources approximately ten years ago. The room is also used as a computer room, office, storage room, secretary's room and staff room. A rural co-ordinator was recently sanctioned for the school under the DEIS programme and a special needs assistant must be accommodated. Where are all these members of staff to be accommodated?

The school has one sink and there is no room to install more. There are no sinks in the classrooms and no running water, hot or cold. One computer is squeezed into a corner, allowing limited access for teachers and pupils, and the limited space severely restricts reading, art, computer work, dancing, circle time and the display of the children's work. Physical education is completely dependent on weather conditions. The staff room has no kitchen facilities, no hot or cold water and no food preparation or disposal area, yet it caters for a minimum of eight people.

This year the school participated in the school meals programme, organised by the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Participation is curtailed somewhat due to the lack of the most basic resources. The school wishes to operate a breakfast club in addition to participating in this scheme.

The school serves an area with a high incidence of educational disadvantage, which is furthered by the lack of adequate and basic facilities, which are clearly required. The provision of a general purpose room is essential to the school and it would serve as a dining room for use under the school meals programme. Children could eat their lunches, produce shows, sing, talk, hold exhibitions and do art there while staff could use it for supervision. Since the classrooms are small and overcrowded, ventilation problems arise, especially if the children are contained there all day. Such containment leads to stress among the pupils and teachers and gives rise to health and safety concerns for everybody. Small communal toilets for large numbers of children leave a lot to be desired. It is clear there is an urgent need to upgrade and disperse them so the requirements of everyone do not need to be catered for in just one location.

The school authorities were given to understand that the necessary capital funding would be provided some months ago. The Minister can therefore imagine their disappointment and dismay not only over the refusal of their initial application, but also over the binning of their appeal. I believed they might have been mistaken in their understanding of the matter until I read the reply to a parliamentary question I tabled on 2 October 2007. It stated:

On 5 March 2007, I announced details of the schools to receive funding under the Small Schools Scheme 2007. The application from the school to which the Deputy refers was successful and officials from School Building Section have been in contact the school authority advising them of the next steps in the process.

The Minister made reference to Saint Bríde's national school but there is no such school in Ballynacargy, nor is there in Emper or the next village.

Will the Minister reinclude Ballynacargy national school if its application has been rejected and ensure it receives the money necessary to put in place two new classrooms, the general purpose room, a staff room, two resource rooms and an office? This would allow the conversion of the existing four classrooms into two rooms. I rarely raise any such matter in the House but this is very important. I refer to my own area, which is expanding and designated by the Department as disadvantaged. Will the Minister please find the €484,000 that the board of management, principal and staff and parents were originally led to believe they would receive? Later they were led to believe the contrary and then, on the basis of the reply to my parliamentary question, they were lead to believe they had the funding again. I am afraid the Minister will disappoint me again. A legitimate expectation has been raised on foot of her reply and it is up to her to correct the misinterpretation, if there is one. On behalf of the people associated with the school, I ask that a wrong be put right.

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. His main interest concerns the school to which he referred. I understand there are two schools listed for Ballynacargy, each with its own roll number. One is Scoil Bhríde and the other is Ballynacargy mixed national school. My reply to the parliamentary question last week related to Scoil Bhríde and my reply tonight concerns the mixed national school. If there is any confusion over this, I will be happy to clarify it for the Deputy.

The Deputy will be aware of the extent of the modernisation of schools nationwide, particularly given the under-investment in this area over many years. Obviously, many old schools are being modernised and we have been keeping pace with the rapid population growth. This year alone the Government has spent €550 million on the schools building programme. Under the lifetime of the national development plan, some €4.5 billion will be invested. This is an unprecedented level of investment and shows our commitment to continued investment in primary and post-primary schools.

Some €300 million will be invested in large-scale building projects, mainly in rapidly developing areas. This will facilitate 150 large-scale projects and deliver 15,000 additional permanent places in new schools and extensions and modernised facilities in existing schools, benefiting over 45,000 pupils. It will also enable the purchase of sites to facilitate the smooth delivery of the schools building programme, again focusing on site requirements in rapidly developing areas. The balance will be used to fund the other schemes referred to by the Deputy, namely, the summer works scheme, the small schools scheme, the permanent accommodation scheme, etc. This year alone, some 1,500 schools building projects will be delivered.

As Deputy Penrose rightly stated, Ballynacargy mixed national school has a principal, three mainstream teachers, one learning support-resource teacher and one resource teacher. There are small classes and a pupil teacher ratio of approximately 1:19. Enrolment has been very stable over the past five years. I accept that in some cases additional teachers were employed before accommodation was made available. It was more important to put staff in place than wait for the classrooms, particularly in respect of resource teaching and supports for children.

The mixed national school's application was not successful on this occasion. I will clarify the position in respect of the other roll number referred to by the Deputy. It is open to the school to apply again for funding and the circumstances outlined by the Deputy will be taken into consideration in light of the multi-annual schools building and modernisation programme.