Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise the urgent need for the new Minister for Education and Science to recognise the proposed Educate Together school in Dublin 15. This school is supported by hundreds of parents as the school of choice for their children in the Carpenterstown and Luttrellstown area of Dublin 15. Many of these parents have experienced great frustration in getting a place for their children in a local school. The previous Minister for Education and Science, in a change from long-standing education policy, refused recognition for this school. I urge the new Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, to review as a matter of urgency the intense demand from parents for the recognition of their school. The former Minister for Education and Science refused the application because of her wish to pilot a new VEC-sponsored primary school in the area. The Minister chose to ignore the advice of the new schools advisory committee which recommended recognition of this Educate Together school.

There is a legally binding agreement between the Department of Education and Science and Educate Together, dating back to 12 July 2000, that the Department would retain a further reserved school site for Educate Together in return for the Castleknock Educate Together school agreeing, at the time, to move to a Department-owned site at Beechpark Avenue. Educate Together accepted this arrangement in good faith but expected to proceed in time with a further school in the Carpenterstown area to serve the huge population of children in the area along with other schools, such as a further local primary school, St. Patrick's, which is now open and will have close to 1,000 pupils quite soon. The Department of Education has planning permission for a 16-classroom school in the area in Porterstown. This is on a site which could easily accommodate two schools during the start-up phase as happened in Adamstown.

According to the Constitution, the Department of Education and Science must respect parental choice in respect of schools where this is expressed. There is no doubt that a sufficient number of parents in the area have chosen a multi-denominational Educate Together school for their children.

I understand that the appeal for the recognition of Carpenterstown Educate Together school will be heard shortly. The new Minister has an opportunity to gain an immense amount of goodwill from parents in the area. I believe that if he reviews the case for recognising Carpenterstown Educate Together school, he will concur with the recommendation of the new schools advisory committee and recognise the school.

Educate Together has an established 30-year record of facilitating parents who want multi-denominational education for their children, from all backgrounds, Irish and international. Educate Together, as with all other schools in Dublin 15, Catholic and Church of Ireland and Gaelscoileanna, take children from all backgrounds and from all nationalities. I note the Minister of State with responsibility for integration policy is present in the Chamber. I believe it is important that we have integrated education at primary level of all the children who live in Dublin 15. We do not want schools that are for international children only, as was the disastrous policy of the previous Minister for Education and Science. With many others I welcomed the announcement by the previous Minister that the VEC might be involved in primary education and would be established as a patron of primary education but that should not come at the expense of the right of Educate Together to continue as a patron of new primary schools. The ball is in the Minister's court. The previous Minister for Education and Science got it wrong. The consequences are that in Balbriggan and in Scoil Choilm there are schools where there are only international children. Educate Together has a proven track record of educating children together of all faiths and none and of children from all backgrounds, whether Irish or international. All our local traditional parish primary schools in Dublin West do that as well and do it superbly. The former Minister for Education and Science chose not to know the situation. There is an opportunity for the new Minister for Education and Science to open out to the parents, who are desperate for a school for their children. I urge the new Minister for Education and Science to avail of the opportunity to revisit the issue and grant recognition to this important school project.

Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and for giving me the opportunity to outline to the House the actions being taken by the Department to address the school accommodation needs of the Porterstown, Carpenterstown, Clonsilla areas of Dublin 15. The Minister is conscious that the Dublin 15 area as a whole is one of the most rapidly developing areas in the country and, as a result, there has been a marked increase in the demand for primary school places. The Department is taking a number of measures to increase the capacity of existing schools in the area concerned along with the development of new schools to meet this growing demand. All building projects arising from these interventions are awarded a band 1 priority rating under the Department's prioritisation criteria for large scale building projects to ensure they are delivered as expeditiously as possible.

With particular reference to the Porterstown, Carpenterstown, Clonsilla areas a number of interventions have been made to ensure adequate school provision. There are currently three schools that serve the area. St. Patrick's national school moved into a new 24 classroom school last year. This school facilitates an annual three stream intake. St. Mochta's national school was expanded in 2006 to cater for an annual four stream intake. An extension to cater for this development has been progressed to architectural planning. School planning section liaised closely with the local authority and the two schools serving the area and determined that up to an additional 90 children would require junior places for September 2007. In that context a further school, Scoil Choilm, was opened in Diswellstown, Dublin 15 under the temporary patronage of the Catholic Church in September 2007 and enrolled three streams of junior infants. The school is temporarily accommodated in the Institute of Horology, VEC owned building, in Blanchardstown. Transport has been made available given the age of the children involved. The school will be relocated to an off-site constructed school on a temporary 2.5 acre site on the Porterstown Road from September 2008.

In relation to the Carpenterstown Educate Together parents group that has been established, an application for recognition of a new school in Carpenterstown in September 2008 was received by the new schools advisory committee. The new schools advisory committee is an independent advisory group established to process applications for the recognition of new primary schools and to make recommendations to the Minister. In the course of assessing the application from Carpenterstown Educate Together, the new schools advisory committee took cognisance of all of the factors and were of the view that the proposed new school met the normal criteria for the recognition of new schools and made their recommendation to the Minister in this regard.

In recognising a new school, cognisance needs to be given to the demand on resources so that the State can ensure efficiency and equity in the allocation of constrained resources. In that context, given the significant additional levels of primary school provision made in the area in the past two to three years, the Minister was satisfied that sufficient provision had been made to serve the current and future population of the area in the medium term, and that appropriate diversity of provision has also been provided. On that basis, recognition was not granted to Educate Together project on this occasion and this does not preclude recognition of this school in the future.

Educate Together lodged a number of other notifications of intention to apply for the recognition of new schools for next September with the new schools advisory committee and 11 new Educate Together schools across the country have been granted provisional recognition from September 2008 including four new Educate Together schools in Dublin. I assure the Deputy that all options were considered to ensure that there are sufficient school places in September 2008. Based on the pre-enrolment data to hand, there will be surplus school places in the area in September 2008.

Due to the anticipated continuing level of demand for school places in the Dublin 15 area, the need to make further provision at primary level in addition to that outlined is being kept under continuous review by my Department. Any proposed new school not granted recognition is entitled to appeal this decision if it considers that the criteria and procedures for the recognition of new primary schools have been improperly or inappropriately applied in its case. I understand that an appeal, in the case of the proposed Carpenterstown Educate Together school, has recently been lodged and this will be considered shortly.

I thank the Deputy for allowing me the opportunity to outline the Department's position on school provision in this area.