Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister, whom I have met on a number of previous occasions in various educational contexts. As the Fine Gael spokesperson on education and science in the Seanad, I welcome the Labour Party motion that no child should be denied access to education on the grounds of religion or race. This follows from the position articulated by my colleague, Deputy Brian Hayes, in the Dáil last week, where he described the convening of a national forum on education as vital for the future of our education system. I see such a forum, which would have clear terms of reference with regard to discussing the future of our education system, as the way forward in terms of bringing all the issues into the open and addressing them in public. We established a similar forum in 1994 following the publication of the Green Paper and prior to the Education Act 1998. I ask the Minister to seriously consider a forum. It would not be very different from the proposals being put forward by the Labour Party.

The crisis which occurred in September in the provision of primary school places in Balbriggan should never recur. In many ways, however, we have been done a favour because the matter has finally come to a head. Yesterday I spoke with the principal in Balbriggan and the chairman of the Educate Together school. I commend them for rising to the challenge in such a situation of crisis. No one listened when similar issues arose elsewhere in the country. In Galway, schools are at full capacity, yet house building continues in new areas such as Doughiska and Knocknacarra without any forward planning for an education infrastructure at local level. The matter is totally brainless. Knocknacarra, which I called new although it has been in existence for 20 years, has finally received its first English school this year. Should we call that good forward planning?

The problem can be solved if there is the will on the behalf of the Department of Education and Science to engage in joined-up thinking with local government and other Departments with information on population trends. The areas that need to be targeted in the first instance are those with large-scale housing developments. This information is freely available through local area plans and town plans with population projections. If she wants to be responsible, the Minister should immediately act in conjunction with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to amend the Planning and Development Acts to ensure that school places are included by law and, where necessary, that schools are built at the same time as houses. In practice, this means the Department will have to take a proactive forward planning role with local government to identify school sites and begin the planning process once the local area plan is adopted. That is not happening and the way we do our business is not satisfactory. Laytown screamed for a school earlier this year. In Oranmore, where I live, Gaelscoil de hIde has been 13 years in existence without a permanent site and the school's nearly 200 students have to stagger their breaks in order to be able to play safely in the yard.

I have been a member of four school boards of management, each of which has encountered issues pertaining to space or buildings. Over 50% of the accommodation in Athenry vocational school is in prefabs. A state-of-the-art facility at Calasanctius College was already over capacity when it was opened by the Minister and the school had to inform a number of children there was only room for local students. These problems will continue unless a system of integrated forward planning across Government agencies is initiated by the Department.

A national and local government database needs to be established of births and new entrants to current school areas in order to establish whether schools have adequate places for children at primary and secondary level. When a child is born, a window of four or five years is available for planning. I accept it is more difficult when families move into areas during the year in which they need school places but ours is a State led, publicly funded education system and it is the duty of the Minister to ensure sufficient places for all our children, regardless of race, religion or social background. Balbriggan has proven this is not happening. It has done the country a favour in terms of bringing the Department's lack of forward planning to a head.

Where there is a new influx of multi-ethnic populations, information needs to be sought from other Departments so as to give a fuller picture of new populations. Using the PPS system, data can be collected on families receiving rental allowance through the community welfare office and the HSE. Community pre-school services can give information on the numbers seeking funding from the Department of Health and Children and the HSE for inspections. Non-EU national families are in contact with local immigration offices under the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, which can also provide information on refugees and asylum seekers on direct provision. This information needs to be centrally collated.

I ask the Minister to commit to putting a national and local database system in place so that we can track our children. This would also help children who do not transfer from primary to secondary level. At least 1,000 children are currently untraceable due to the absence of a database. We have far more accountability in our national cattle herd.

On the issue of school patronage, I acknowledge the huge contribution that the Catholic church has made to education. Few of us have not been educated by nuns, priests or brothers and there will always be a need for denominational education. Parents have the right to chose and, in this context, I welcome Archbishop Martin's statement on a debate. However, we also must accept that we live in a changing Ireland that has experienced unprecedented immigration and multiculturalism over the past ten years. This has challenged all that we do at every level, including our traditional models of school patronage and provision.