Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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This is also related to education and schools and I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, for dealing with it. I was informed that the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, would not be available today. I accept that and trust that the Minister of State will relay my comments and requests back to her.

Since I was elected I have been engaging with parents in north Wicklow, especially in Greystones, Delgany, Kilcoole and Newtownmountkennedy. These are areas that have undergone quite a large population increase. A lot of the new housing we are seeing is being built in the north Wicklow area and it is good to see housing being built. Every time I go there canvassing there are new houses and new people moving in. That is good and I welcome that. However, my concern is we are not keeping pace with the provision of the services that go with housing. We often focus on making sure there is water, power and roads but we sometimes forget about those other services that make a house a home, one of which is school places.

We have a number of schools in Greystones. I have been meeting with parents, parent groups, principals and students over the past three to four years. One of those schools is Temple Carrig, which is a beautiful school. My nephews went to school there. It has a capacity of about 750 but at the moment it is operating at in or around 900, so it is well over capacity. The school is somewhere through the process of getting the nod from the Department to apply for planning permission for an extension.

I will relay to the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Foley, the urgency attached to that.

For the past three to four years, we have gone through the process of being short of school places. It has been a real pressure on parents and children who hope to go to those schools, in addition to siblings, teachers and everybody involved. We have this scramble every year. Greystones Community College is another school in Greystones. There is planning permission for a 1,000-unit school, which is fantastic, but I suspect that is delayed somewhat and that we will experience a shortage of school places again. I know we will experience it this year, but we will have it next year and the year after. I think that school is supposed to be delivered in quarter 2 of 2025. We are now in quarter 1 of 2024. With the best will in the world, and all the shovels in the world, that school will not be up and running by quarter 2 of 2025. I suspect we are looking at later so we will have this school pressure again.

There are a number of other schools. St. David's is a beautiful school that has undergone a full refurbishment. I was there last week. It has an absolutely beautiful finish and is a credit to the Department, and the staff and community there, but it is already at capacity. This affects the whole hinterland of Greystones town and the areas that make up the Greystones municipal district. A little further down the road, Coláiste Chraobh Abhann in Kilcoole has also got a planning permission somewhere in the process but we do not know when that will go out to tender. The problem is each school is putting pressure on the others because in areas such as Newtownmountkennedy and Roundwood, which is even further out in County Wicklow, pressure is being put on Kilcoole and Kilcoole puts pressure on the three schools in Greystones. Temple Carrig needs its planning permission and Greystones Community College needs that permanent new-build 1,000 pupil school.

I request the Minister of State to relay this to the Minister. I have done so myself but I want to put on the record that we need to prioritise the assessment of the Greystones Community College tender, and get that contract awarded and that school built as quickly as possible. The Department needs to respond to Temple Carrig, which is leading on this project, to give it the go-ahead to apply for planning permission for that badly needed extension.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising a very important issue. I empathise with him and his constituents. As a Kildare South TD, I know all too well the pressures his constituents in County Wicklow face around school provision and demographic growth. We suffer the same in the adjoining county of Kildare as people in Wicklow do. The Deputy has articulated those challenges in respect of Temple Carrig School and the Greystones area very well.

I issue this response on behalf of the Minister who is unfortunately not able to make it. However, it gives me the opportunity to set out for the House the position with regard to demand for post-primary spaces in Temple Carrig School and the wider Greystones area for September 2024 and onwards.

I assure the Deputy that the provision of school places to meet the needs of children and young people at primary and post-primary level, including children and young people with special educational needs, is an absolute priority for the Department of Education. Since 2018, and up to the end of October 2023, a total of €145 million has been invested in school infrastructure in County Wicklow. This significant capital investment includes a recently delivered major building project to expand St. David’s secondary school in Greystones. State-of-the-art, modern school accommodation for 750 pupils was provided at this school.

The Department of Education is currently progressing a major building project for Temple Carrig School in Greystones under the national development plan. Temple Carrig School in Greystones is also a co-educational school established in 2014, as the Deputy will be aware. A project is under way to provide accommodation at this school for 1,000 pupils, which is currently at stage 1, preliminary design stage. A project for four modular mainstream classrooms has also been approved. These classrooms are now on-site and the project is completed.

In line with the Department's demographic projections of post-primary school place requirements, there has been a continued growth in enrolments throughout many school planning areas in County Wicklow. In response, the Department is providing further significant additional post-primary capacity, including a new 1,000-pupil school for Greystones Community College. Greystones Community College was established in 2020 as a regional solution for the Kilcoole and Greystones area. The project to deliver this new school building is at stage 3, tender stage. The permanent building project will deliver a new 1,000 pupil post-primary school with accommodation, including four classrooms, for children with special educational needs. The project is being delivered under the Department’s design and build programme and is currently at tender stage. The invitation to tender issued in April 2023 as part of a bundle of projects issued to the Department's framework of design and build contracts. The tender process currently takes approximately eight to 12 months. Tender returns have been received and are currently being evaluated. Once a contractor has been appointed, it is anticipated that construction will commence shortly thereafter.

In addition to the above projects, there is also the existing school in the adjacent Kilcoole school planning area, Coláiste Chraobh Abhann, for which a major project has been approved to expand the school to 1,000 pupils. This project is currently at stage 2b and is being delivered by the National Development Finance Agency. The annual enrolment process for new junior infants at primary and new first years at post-primary is a very large-scale operation that is transacted at close to 4,000 schools throughout the country, involving some 140,000 pupils.

In the context of post-primary enrolment pressures at Greystones, the Department is aware of pressures for school places for the 2024-25 school year. A critical next step for the Department of Education is to establish the actual number of additional first-year places required for 2024 in order for an appropriate solution to be put in place. In that context, schools in a number of areas of enrolment pressure, including Greystones, have been requested to share data on applications for admissions. This data has been received by Department officials and is currently being analysed with a view to establishing the actual requirement for places. Preliminary assessments indicate that duplication of applications and applications from outside the local area are very much contributing to enrolment pressures in the town.

I have further details in the response that I will come back to in the supplementary answer.

Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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I thank the Minister of State for that response. It is good to get it down on paper, especially since I had not realised that €145 million had been invested in infrastructure in County Wicklow schools. When I go around the county and see those new schools being built, such as St. Coen's in Rathnew, or St. David's, as the Minister of State referenced, I realise the advancements that have been made in school provision. The quality of those builds when they are done is incredible, as is the space that is in them. When I think back to my own school experience, these schools are incomparable.

The Minister of State mentioned the tendering process takes between eight and 12 months. Is there a way we can speed up public procurement on our projects? A school in Cork, Wicklow, Limerick or wherever will be a school with a 1,000-pupil capacity. It will be in or around that. Except for different sites with different topographical issues affecting construction, we should be getting to a standard design and speeding up the process. My concern is the length of time it will take the Department to award the contracts. Building takes time, as the Minister of State knows. I presume it takes 24 months to build a school. It is in or around 18 to 24 months. We will be in the same position. We are still seeing houses being built in Greystones, Delgany, Kilcoole and Newtownmountkennedy, which is good and what I want to see, but I am concerned that we will not provide those school places quickly enough. I urge the Minister of State to take back those concerns.

In fairness to the Department, it met with the five County Wicklow TDs. We went through this with the officials. They have engaged with us and it is good but I urge the Minister of State to bring it back to the Minister and ask that the go-ahead be given to Temple Carrig to apply for that planning permission. That is urgent. It is not a high cost to go for planning permission and have the process move along. I also ask that the awarding of the contract for Greystones Community College be speeded up. Those are my two asks.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I will bring back the request the Deputy made to the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. who has special responsibility for special school places, which is obviously a key part of the Deputy's ask as well.

To reassure parents in the area who are following this debate, I will highlight that the collaboration and engagement that are now taking place are very important. I commend the schools and their patrons on sharing the data. As I know from my area, when there is a shortage of places, parents will rightly consider hedging their bets and applying to a number of different schools. That one boy or girl will only take one place next September but will appear four or five times on different waiting lists. That inflates the problem and makes it feel even bigger than it is. It is very important that we share the data at this time of the year, cut through it, and if there is a shortfall see exactly what that shortfall is.

I am very much reassured by the Department and the Minister's response that regular ongoing engagement - I am delighted to hear there has been engagement with local representatives as well - between the Department and school management boards is continuing. First, it is about assessing whether there is a shortfall and exactly where it is, and then making sure it is addressed.

There is a strong pipeline of projects being delivered across school areas in the area. That €145 million investment in Wicklow really shows that the proof of the pudding is the investment by the State in education facilities across the county in recent years. We will not be found wanting in looking to meet the really significant demand that is there.

The Department has been in contact with schools and patrons and is aware of the evolving situation with respect to the first year places in Greystones for September 2024. Applications for admission and engaging with schools and patrons is an ongoing process in that respect. Officials from the Department will continue to liaise with each of the patrons and the schools to find a workable solution to ensure that no student is without a place in September 2024. I expect there will be further clarity provided for the families and the school communities in a couple of weeks.