Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Clerihan, a village approximately five miles from Clonmel, is rapidly growing into a new town, but it has limited facilities. It has no sports pitch but one is being prepared, partly grant-aided by the Department. There used be a post office when it was a tiny village, but now that the population has expanded it has none.

The school, which was built approximately 12 years ago, is expanding rapidly. For example, there were 55 pupils in 1994, there are now 162 pupils and there is every indication from the state of the town, which is effectively almost a building site, that the number will continue rising.

There is an active and enterprising board of management, chaired of course by the parish priest Fr. Ó Bric, which wants the best for their children and to provide the facilities needed. A fine new school with two classrooms was built in 1995. In 1999 permission was granted for an extra classroom, and then there was a question of further accommodation. Following much correspondence, permission was given for two classrooms, but the board of management decided the school would need four classrooms and proper facilities for the principal, and it funded this itself. Simultaneously, it also undertook to build a fine sports hall — not funded by the Department. The school had to raise and borrow significant sums of money. There is a sense of injustice in that it is having to pay for a basic classroom facility and it is encountering an almost punitive attitude from the Department because it moved ahead and provided the facilities itself.

To be fair to the Department, it has, particularly in the case of small schools with the devolved grant, moved in the direction of giving more responsibility and block grants to school managements. However, as I stated, the sports facility in Clerihin is being funded entirely by the school It is a big building and it looks as if the school will not have sufficient funds to complete it unless it can get some of the money allocated for the classrooms, which the Department would have to fund, whether as temporary or other accommodation.

I appeal to the Minister to show some flexibility in this regard and to honour, rather than take a disapproving attitude with, parents and boards of management who have the enterprise to undertake to provide proper facilities for their schools. I can easily understand their impatience.

Of course I must be fair to the Department of Education and Science and accept that it must ensure an orderly system of development of educational facilities but, as I stated to a previous Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, who took note of it, in the context of south Tipperary this is a unique town because it is growing exponentially in a way that no other town or village of its size is doing and it will have to cater for pupils from a very large population.

Before people get into the trenches, I appeal to the Department to reconsider this matter and see if it can at least reimburse the board of management for the extra classrooms that were needed and that were provided for by the foresight of the parents and the management. I admit to having reservations about so many areas of policy being centralised and everything having to go through a Department. Should we move towards giving more responsibility to people, supporting those prepared to take initiatives and put money towards facilities? This would be the enlightened way to run our education system and these are very worthy people with a fine school, the core of which was built by the Department of Education and Science. Those involved have taken this issue further than they were permitted but their behaviour is totally justifiable on the basis of the huge increase in pupils.

I appeal to the Minister for State and the Department of Education and Science to enter discussions to resolve this matter and address what is a justifiable sense of grievance.