Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I reiterate my welcome for the extra €55 million provided, between the Book of Estimates and the budget, for school buildings. I suppose it was directed more towards primary than secondary schools, but the budget allocation was for both.

The attention of the Minister for Education and Science and his Department should be drawn to the situation of Newtown Upper national school, which sometimes is also called Upper Newtown national school. It is approximately five miles up in the hills beyond Carrick on Suir, right on the Kilkenny border near the high crosses of Ahenny. It is a lovely location but also a very exposed one. The main building is in reasonably good order but the space for staff and remedial teaching is very cramped and limited. There are plans to extend a room that would double up both as office space and a remedial teaching room. The real scandal is the state of the outside toilets. There is a legitimate view that in this day and age young children should not be forced to go out in all weathers to the toilets. The issue was given major coverage, it was the main story in The Nationalist newspaper the week before last and also featured in the Irish Star.

Reading between the lines of comments made at a meeting I attended, it is clear that the INTO attaches a very high priority to the situation being remedied. The point was made at the public meeting that public schools like this, where there is a very good ethos and terrific support from parents, are not those from which the social problems of modern life emanate; they certainly have not done so from past pupils of this type of school. It is a very fine two teacher school with 36 pupils, and there was virtually a full turnout of parents at the meeting.