Dáil debates

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Topical Issue Debate

Schools Building Projects

4:00 pm

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased to have an opportunity to raise this issue, along with Deputy Boyd Barrett, in the presence of the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon. I am raising the need for a new school building at Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, County Dublin. This issue affects many of my constituents in the north Wicklow area who attend the school in question. When the school was built in 1972, it was designed to cater for a maximum of 400 students in a building that was due to last for 20 years. At present, the school has 830 students, which is a real sign of its success in the community and the high regard in which it is held. It is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary in the same building, which was supposed to have been replaced after 20 years. The school first made contact with the then Department of Education regarding the need for a replacement building as long ago as 1995. Although many years have elapsed since then, it continues to find itself in this difficult situation. In February 2000, the Department's own inspectors published a report stating that a new building was required. Nine years later, the Department approved a new building at Newpark Comprehensive School to go to tender. Planning permission was granted by An Bord Pleanála in March 2011. The project was listed on the eTenders website in November 2011.

The Minister of State will understand the deep sense of disappointment among the students, parents and teachers at Newpark Comprehensive School, as well as the wider community, when the Minister, Deputy Quinn, announced in the 2012-16 schools building programme that the construction of a new school building would not take place until 2015 or 2016. This news was a source of substantial frustration because the school had been waiting for a long time for the new building that had been deemed necessary by the Department's inspectors. While we welcome the school building programme and the continued investment in schools, there has to be a degree of flexibility within the programme to allow schools that are urgently needed to be developed at a quicker pace. Newpark Comprehensive School is the only non-fee paying Church of Ireland school in a very wide area. I can go through some of the detail of the real issues that need to be resolved at the school with the Minister of State if he wishes. This matter needs to be attended to much more quickly. We welcome the fact that construction of a new school building is on the list, but it needs to happen now rather than in 2015.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I have to admit a certain personal interest in this matter. I am the father of a child who attends Newpark Comprehensive School. Another one of my children will go there in a few years time. As Deputy Harris said, Newpark Comprehensive School caters for 830 children. It is one of the few non-fee paying secondary schools in its large catchment area, which extends from County Wicklow to parts of Dublin like Booterstown and Mount Merrion that are closer to the city centre. I suggest that the current economic crisis will lead to an increase in the demand for non-fee paying schools. I cannot overstate the anger, frustration and disappointment of the parents, staff and students of the school when they heard the news in December of last year - 17 years after the Department accepted that the school needed a new building, such was its level of dilapidation even at that stage - that it was not listed to receive the rebuild that was expected to take place this year.

The school has spent 17 years going through all the hoops, working up designs, getting planning permission, going through appeals and battling to get its dilapidated building rebuilt. Even though the Department accepts a new building is needed, it has taken the school off the list and said the rebuild will not happen until 2015. Tiles are falling off the roof of the school. Its science laboratories do not have proper running water all of the time. It has lighting problems and disability access problems. There are rotten smells in the school corridors. The science rooms are not of the standard required to deliver the science syllabus. In many cases, the toilets are completely inadequate. There are problems with people tripping over, etc., because of problems with the floors. There are all sorts of problems. The school is seriously dilapidated. The Department accepted 17 years ago that a new school was needed. I urge the Minister and the Department to deliver the rebuild of this school. It should not be delayed until 2015. It should be put back on the list for this year or for 2013, at the very latest.

Photo of Ciarán CannonCiarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I am responding to the Deputies who have raised this Topical Issue on behalf of my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Quinn. I thank the Deputies for giving me an opportunity to outline the Government's strategy for capital investment in education projects over the next five years and to clarify the current position in respect of the provision of new building at Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, County Dublin. The building project at the school has been included in the five-year construction programme and is scheduled to commence construction in 2015-16. It is one of 275 projects which have been scheduled to commence construction over the five years of the programme. In scheduling when each project can proceed to construction, the Department has to take account of the funding available annually and the requirement to provide additional school places to meet the increasing demographic needs the Minister outlined when he launched the programme. In summary, those demographic needs involve a total national enrolment which is expected to grow by around 70,000 students between now and 2018. This will entail an increase of over 45,000 at primary level and 25,000 at post-primary, while second level enrolment is expected to continue to rise thereafter until at least 2024. As the Deputies may be aware, in June 2011 the Minister announced that 20 new post-primary schools are to be established up to 2017 across a number of locations to cater for the increasing student numbers at post-primary level alone - that is 20 new schools which are currently not in existence.

The design of the proposed new school building for Newpark comprehensive has been developed based on a long-term projected enrolment of at least 800 students - the current enrolment is 831. A stage 2(b) submission was received in the Department on 4 May and is currently under review. Once that review is complete, the Department will be in contact with the school authority. However, due to the financial constraints imposed by the need to prioritise the funding available each year for the provision of new school accommodation to meet the increasing demographic requirements, the project for Newpark comprehensive has been scheduled to commence construction in 2015-16.

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the Minister of State's response. I ask that he asks the Department officials to reconsider this issue. The Department has recognised the need for this new school build; it is clearly a matter of timing and of priority. If one looks at the overall list, there is scope for a degree of flexibility for the very reasons outlined by Deputy Boyd Barrett in regard to the very serious issues in terms of health and safety, the wide catchment area the school is appealing to in terms of its denominational background and the provision of the science syllabus, given that, according to the Department inspectors, the science labs cannot meet the new science syllabus. As an extra kick in the teeth, funding has been withheld from the school for the upgrade of those labs because it had been promised the new school building.

There is a real need to show there can be flexibility in this list. I ask the Minister of State to ask his officials to reconsider this. In light of the case I and Deputy Boyd Barrett have presented today, I hope a successful resolution can be found and that this school, which is much needed and has been long awaited, is delivered as quickly as possible.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister of State's response is not adequate. The parents, students and staff have been fighting for this school and they have gone through all the hoops for 17 years. The Department has long since accepted the urgent need to rebuild this school to enable it to deliver the education syllabus and to provide adequate surroundings in order for 830 students to learn. At present, the school is a health and safety hazard. It is not suitable for the job it is supposed to do, namely, to teach more than 800 young people and educate them properly. It is not fair on the students, staff and parents to delay this when they have done everything right and when the Department itself has accepted they deserve this rebuild.

I appeal to and urge the Minister to reconsider this and to give a commitment that the rebuild of Newpark school will go ahead this year or at the very latest next year, as was expected and as the Department had indicated would happen. It is simply not fair, justified or acceptable that this should be delayed for another few years which, I suspect, would leave parents, students and staff believing they will never get the rebuild and that it will always - again and again - be put on the long finger when it is so urgently needed. Will the Minister of State give a commitment that he will review this and do something to help the extreme anger and frustration of the parents, staff and students of Newpark, who deserve their new school?

Photo of Ciarán CannonCiarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I will certainly undertake to pass on the concerns of both Deputies to the Minister, Deputy Quinn, and in turn I assume they will be passed on to the officials in the Department's building unit. The first point is that one of the reasons this list was published was to provide complete transparency in the school building programme, something we have not had in the past. In the past, as Deputy Boyd Barrett noted, boards of management were obliged constantly to liaise and, indeed, pressurise the building unit in Tullamore to deliver on particular projects. Boards of management and parents were not aware at any point where they stood in terms of having their school developed. What the Minister, Deputy Quinn, sought to do with the publication of this list was to bring complete clarity to that situation, which is very much welcomed by the vast majority of boards of management across the country, particularly those fortunate enough to be on the list.

Second, some 275 projects are included in the list and it physically is not possible to get all of them off the ground within the first couple of years. Third, the decision for the phasing of these was built around very sound data from the CSO and the Department of Social Protection in regard to children's allowance records in each area. One can only conclude that the officials in the building unit made the decision to phase in Newpark in Blackrock towards the end of the five-year programme based on the demographic challenges that are arising within its catchment area.

I would argue the school is most fortunate to be on the list because, since that list was published, I and I am sure the Deputies have had numerous communications from other schools that were not fortunate enough to be on the list. Other schools are waiting far longer than 17 years. I visited one school recently where the first, second and third years are accommodated in a building that was built in the late 19th century, is completely unsuitable to the needs of a modern school and is inherently dangerous. Those schools were also on the cusp of going to development and some already had their contractors appointed. Now, they have been told they are being put on pause indefinitely until such time as this particularly urgent list is delivered upon.

Newpark is on the list. I will undertake to pass on to the Minister the Deputies' concerns about perhaps moving it up to an earlier date for construction. However, I wish to stress that the school is most fortunate to be in the position of being on the list and that the decision to move the development out towards of the end of the programme is based on sound census and demographic data from the area which the school serves.