John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, whom I meet regularly on the Adjournment about educational matters.

St. Mary's College, Knockbeg, County Carlow, has been the victim of an ongoing, protracted dance with the Department of Education and Science over the past ten years about the drawing down of funding for a new school building. The school has a long history of a couple of hundred years and has almost 400 students on the roll. The problem, as with a number of other schools around the country, particularly in Knockbeg, is the condition of the school buildings themselves. Most of them are quite old and have not been repaired for many years and, as a result, the accommodation in the school leaves a lot to be desired. There has been contact between the Minister, the Department, the school and local TDs over the past couple of years and even in the past few months. A whole school evaluation report was conducted on the college in February 2005 which stated: "There are few specialist rooms, there is a serious deficit of basic facilities and the standard of accommodation is cramped and unsuited to modern secondary school standards." This is a damning statement, particularly in view of the fact that the efforts of the school and the board of management to seek funding have been going on since 1999. It has dragged on for ten years and it is now four years since the damning whole school evaluation report, but we still have no progress.

At the last meeting that took place between the Minister and the board of management, mention was made of the appointment of a conservation architect to examine the school buildings because of their architectural significance. The board of management is anxious that this appointment be made as soon as possible, but I understand no appointment has been made despite the fact that the Minister gave what amounted to a commitment when the meeting, attended by a number of local TDs, took place on 8 January last. I hope the Minister of State in his response will have something positive to say about that and on the bigger question of a new school building for St. Mary's College, Knockbeg.