James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Acting Chairman for allowing me to speak on this Adjournment Debate and the Minister of State for coming in to discuss it. As the father of young children, he will appreciate the seriousness of this matter.

The school at Hedgestown in Lusk, north County Dublin, was built in the 1940s and extended in the 1960s. These buildings are what might be described as "pre-fab" in type, although they are not prefabricated. They are unfit for any purpose at this stage and have been acknowledged as such by the Department of Education and Science which promised a new school in February this year, as the school board accepted. Nonetheless, no works have taken place. This is all the more difficult to understand given that the school had purchased a site across the road and was making it available to the Department.

I shall now turn to the gravity of the situation. This school has an asbestos roof. Below the roof is a suspended ceiling with what is commonly referred to as rock wool, for insulation. The tiles on the school floor are also asbestos, as are the drains and the pipes. What happened here was extremely frightening for children and staff. The roof collapsed over half the classroom, between the students and the only door that acts as an exit. It was by the grace of God that no one was seriously injured. The children had great difficulty in getting out of the classroom, as did the teachers, following the collapse of the roof.

I visited the school, met the principal and saw the state of the room. It was just extraordinary. One must remember these are primary school children, aged eight to ten, who were terrified. Looking around the room, one saw the suspended ceiling falling all over the place and rock wool interspersed with rodent faeces. Thankfully, the school has been closed and arrangements have been made to move the students to Educate Together in Lusk. It is extraordinary, however, that it is now planned to re-roof and re-tile the existing school at enormous cost to the taxpayer when a new school was promised and the site is available. Surely the Minister of State must admit it makes more sense to build the new school now with pre-modular units that could be onsite and commissioned in six months.

Furthermore, the Department has given a grant of only €50,000 to carry out the repairs, whereas at a minimum it will cost €120,000 as well as architects' fees — and that is being conservative. Since the roof is asbestos, they are now monitoring the asbestos levels in the air and clearly all children have been removed from the school. These works will take five to six weeks to complete and in the meantime children will have to be transported to the new school. However, agreement must be reached on a location from which they will be collected and I hope we will get co-operation and that the Department will provide the necessary insurance for any carpark that might be used for this purpose.

The new facility is to be an eight-classroom school, but surely as an interim measure a four-classroom school could be built, with a PE room in phase 1, and phase 2 being built thereafter. There are 92 children enrolled at the moment, most of whom are out of the school. Certainly, some of the classes have gone and cannot return. The entire school is closed and children cannot be collected from there because of the asbestos problem, which has yet to be clarified. Some 92 children will be enrolled next year, 104 the year after and 106 the following year.

This is a growing area, as alluded to by the Minister of State in one of his earlier responses. There is very little sense, in my view, in expending further taxpayers' money on a time-expired building built partly in the 1940s and partly in the 1960s, when within four months and for a little extra money a new school could be put in place. I understand these modular units are merely leased from the providers and therefore would not represent huge capital outlay.

I hope the Minister of State can reassure the children, parents and teachers of Hedgestown school, which caters for many pupils from all around north County Dublin, including Balrothery, Lusk, Rush, Naul, Man-o'-War, Walshestown and Balbriggan, that a new school can be provided. Otherwise what we are facing is disruption for the students while they are being transported over and back to Educate Together in Lusk, only to move back into this unsatisfactory situation and have to move again later. It seems to be waste of the State's resources as well as the children's and parents' time.

I hope the Minister of State will be able to tell the House that, rather than having this interim measure, these children having been subjected to the shock of the roof falling in on them, will be facilitated, put to the top of the queue and given priority for their new school. This should take place as expeditiously as possible so that they can move straight from Educate Together back to a new school.

Having spoken to some of the parents today, my understanding is that if the Department acts other than expeditiously, there could be other consequences, perhaps of litigious nature, which I would find regrettable. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to take the Adjournment and I look forward to his response.

Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter as it provides me with the opportunity to outline to this House the position with regard to the incident which occurred at Hedgestown national school, Lusk, County Dublin, last week and the Department's plans to provide a new building for the school.

Hedgestown national school is a fully vertical co-educational facility. This means that it caters for boys and girls from junior infants to sixth class, inclusive. The enrolment as at 30 September 2008 was 82 pupils. The school has a current staffing of a teaching principal, three mainstream class teachers, one language support teacher and one learning support teacher.

The existing school building is currently located on a sloped site of less than 0.5 acres. The school has three permanent classrooms and the Department is grant-aiding the rental of a prefabricated mainstream classroom and resource rooms. The Department also sanctioned the purchase of a prefab this year to meet the school's September 2008 needs.

A ceiling collapse in the school was reported to the Department last week. The Department immediately notified the incident to the Health and Safety Authority and it advised the school to do likewise. A senior member of the Department's professional staff visited the school to assess the situation and to make recommendations on the works that would be needed to address the problem. A member of the Health and Safety Authority also visited the school.

Following the recommendations of the Department's professional and technical staff, the board of management was informed that the Department will provide the school with the funds to carry out the necessary remediation works and to employ a suitably qualified consultant to advise the board of management on and to oversee these works.

I am pleased to inform Deputy Reilly that alternative accommodation has been sourced for the entire school population pending the completion of the works. This accommodation is in Rush-Lusk Educate Together national school. The Department provided an off-site construction building for this school earlier this year and accommodation is available in it on a short term basis. Transport to this accommodation is in the process of being arranged for the Hedgestown pupils. They are expected to take up occupation when the schools re-open after the mid-term break.

The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, wants to take the opportunity to thank the authorities and the principal's of both Hedgestown national school and Rush-Lusk Educate Together for their co-operation in what is a difficult time for Hedgestown national school, in particular.

With regard to the proposed large scale capital project for Hedgestown, the Department intends providing the school with a new eight classroom generic repeat design building. A site for this development is being provided by the parish. It has been technically assessed and deemed suitable. The project for the new building was announced by the former Minister, Deputy Mary Hanafin, to progress to architectural planning in April 2007.

In common with all applications for large scale capital funding, the application for Hedgestown was assessed in accordance with the Department's published prioritisation criteria for large scale building projects. It has been assigned a band two rating under this process.

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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That is a shame.

Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Due to the extent of the demand on the Department's capital programme, the Minister is not in a position to indicate a timeframe as to when the project will be approved to proceed but a band two rating is the second highest band rating possible and this means that the project is well positioned to advance once the requisite funding is available.

The Minister wants to assure the Deputy that the Department is fully committed to ensuring that the current difficulties at Hedgestown national school are addressed as expeditiously as possible. The Department will also continue to consider the advancement of the large scale large scale building project for the school under the school modernisation and building programme.

Once again I thank Deputy Reilly for providing me with the opportunity to address the House on this matter and to outline the current position.