Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. My Adjournment matter arises from the press statement issued last week by the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, which confused me and many other people throughout the country in terms of the type language used and its lack of substance. The statement referred to schools that would progress through architectural planning but those schools have been at the architectural planning stage for years.

I ask the Minister of State to clarify the press statement in regard to two schools in Carlow, one being Scoil Mhuire gan Smál in Carlow town. I remind the Minister that in 2000, Scoil Mhuire gan Smál celebrated 40 years in operation. The then Minister, Deputy Michael Woods, visited the school and made an excellent speech complimenting the present and past staff members on the great work they have done in the school. He announced that the school building programme would be going ahead for the school but, unfortunately, five years later I am raising it in this House. That says it all.

In the case of Bennekerry national school, which I attended, it is still waiting for the building programme to proceed and has been for many years. The school is growing rapidly. As the Minister of State is aware, Carlow town is expanding rapidly and Bennekerry school takes in a large number of children from the local area, as well as some children from Carlow town. Bennekerry, Palatine, Kernanstown Terrace and all the areas in between are developing rapidly and that is putting enormous pressure on the school. In the case of Scoil Mhuire and Bennekerry national school, some might be concerned that by the time the new school building is built, it might already be out of date.

I hope the Minister of State will have good news for us today. I suspect he might be able to tell me these schools are proceeding to planning permission stage but I want a guarantee that as soon as they receive planning permission from the local authority they will be fast-tracked on to the tendering process and so on. I understand that even if the schools were granted planning permission in the next few weeks, it will be at least three years before the school building is ready for use. That is intolerable for both the staff members and the current and future pupils.

I will illustrate a case to the Minister of State about the school building programme. He may not be fully aware of it with his accounting background but I am sure many representations have been made to him on it in his own constituency. In Athy, a neighbouring county, Athy community school had a pupil who was confined to a wheelchair. For some reason, the general purpose room in the school was upstairs, which in hindsight was a mistake. Instead of the Department putting a new lift into the school its officials said it would approve the building of a new school, which made perfect sense. The student in the wheelchair left that school two years ago and the new school has still not been built. That is an example of the delay in the school building programme.

I welcome the initiative taken by the Government on the devolved grants, which is the way forward. I do not understand the reason we have such a centralised system in terms of school building. If schools need extensions or refurbishment, they should be given the money because they know what to do best. Why must everything go through the school building unit in Tullamore, which slows down the process?

On devolved grants, I take this opportunity to inform the Minister that St. Mary's Church of Ireland school in Bagenalstown was given €500,000 as a devolved grant, which is all very well but the school needed €1 million. That school is now in difficulty because it has to raise the remaining €500,000. If the school does not accept the grant offered by the Department, it might have to wait years for a new school building.

These are real issues and I urge the Minister to put her weight behind the school programme and allocate funding. Devolved grants are the way forward. We should put an end to the centralised system and give autonomy to the principals and staff in schools. That would speed up the process, which is ridiculously slow. In one school three principals have dealt with the building programme. Three principals have retired and moved on in that period. That is an indication of the slowness of the process. I look forward to the Minister of State's reply.