John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State and the Cathaoirleach for giving me the opportunity to raise this issue. Like most of the Adjournment matters I have raised, this is a schools issue. Without casting aspersions on the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, I want to raise my objection that we do not have a Minister from the Department of Education and Science present for the debate. Two of the three Adjournment matters this afternoon relate to education and there are enough Ministers in that Department to have one here to answer them. While the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, will ably deputise for her colleagues in the Department of Education and Science, one of them should be here as a matter of principle.

My issue concerns Marymount national school in The Rower, a rural school in a neighbouring parish. The school caters for approximately 134 pupils. It has six teachers including five class teachers and a learning support teacher with a half-day of a resource teacher every week. The problem concerns the dilapidation of the school building. In the past few months the parish community has purchased additional lands adjacent to the existing school premises and has received a number of commitments, principally before the last general election and even before the previous one, that the school would be completed as a matter of urgency. The board of management and the parents' council have done Trojan fundraising work. They have been told they have passed all stages and are awaiting clearance from the Department to commence construction. That was expected to happen last October. The contractor who had been more or less pinpointed to do the job was expecting an announcement to be made last October but it has not been made.

As I said, the school is in poor condition. The rooms are smaller than standard size, there are significant problems with sewerage and electrical equipment. For the past eight years they have been renting two prefabs in the school yard for additional space at a cost of €10,000 each annually. This story is repeated in other parts of the country but unique to The Rower is the number of commitments given by the Government in the past number of years that work would be carried out, and nothing has happened.

It has already cost approximately €200,000 in fees for architects and engineers for the plans that have been drawn up for the new school in The Rower. It has not reached the final stage of the Department granting the go-ahead to the developer to commence work. The principal and other staff members had numerous meetings with the previous Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin, and were told they would be included in the last three or four announcements on school construction, but it has not happened. There is a high level of frustration in the area that this has not happened. In post-Celtic tiger Ireland there is concern that this announcement might never be made.

I was interested to hear Senator Fitzgerald's question at the end of her remarks on the banding system. As far as I was aware until very recently the bands included only one, two, three and four; the decimal places seem to be a recent development. I do not know if I am correct and maybe the Minister of State could correct me. There is a significant problem in The Rower national school. The building is more than 40 years old and is in an unacceptable condition for a national school in 2008. Commitments have been given by Government representatives over a number of years and no work has been done. I hope the Minister of State will have positive news for construction to begin in the near future when she responds.