Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State. As a Deputy representing a Gaeltacht area, I am sure he will sympathise with the case I am making for Gaelscoil uí Cheithearnaigh. I invite him to visit Ballinasloe to see the accommodation crisis at the school, which featured on RTÉ's "Six One News" programme this evening.

The school was founded 13 years ago with just six pupils. In September 2003, 195 pupils will be registered there. Accommodation is in four separate buildings, all of which are rented at a cost of €4,250 per month. Seven years ago, the school received priority one status for funding from the Department. On 1 December 1998 the school received written confirmation of funding for purchase of a site and building of the school as follows, "Is féidir liom a dhearbhú go mbeidh airgead ar fáil le suíomh a cheannach agus an scoil a thógáil."

The school authorities were recently informed that the site for the new school will not be purchased this year and that it is not now possible to know when it will be purchased. It is sad that this school may lose a site with planning permission for a ten teacher school. The school has a vibrant staff, enthusiastic parents and eager pupils enduring difficult conditions which pose constant health and safety problems for all concerned. I will emphasise the unsafe nature of this school for children.

Children are taught in chronically overcrowded classrooms, the exits from four of which lead out to a busy street. The school is located in four separate buildings with five separate ESB bills, five separate standing charges and three telephone bills. Children have to walk down a busy street to access the schoolyard. To get to and from games, drama or dance lessons, they must walk up and down Society Street in Ballinasloe and then cross the road and a busy bus park. Each child makes between two and eight of these trips each day. The classrooms lack proper lighting and ventilation, which is hazardous to the children's health. The toilet facilities are totally inadequate and it is difficult to maintain basic hygiene with boys and girls in five of the rooms having to share one toilet. The confined play area leads to many accidents and old buildings close by require constant repair to ensure their safety. That is a major concern for the school community.

Three of the classrooms, former shops, are now housed in an apartment complex. Three dressing rooms and a kitchen in the town hall double up as classrooms and this inevitably leads to disruption for all concerned. The local musical society, which performed Oklahoma for seven nights last week, had to use the children's classrooms.

Every year, during the great October fair, the car park is closed for up to four weeks, leaving parents with no parking facilities when collecting their children. There are no staff toilet facilities. Male and female staff and children from resource classes share one toilet. As the units are self-contained, it takes five staff to supervise eight classrooms on wet days.