John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, to the House. My Adjournment issue is pretty self-explanatory. It concerns Ballinkillen national school in south County Carlow, which was the subject of a protest outside Leinster House a few weeks ago, where the parents, members of the board of management and some of the pupils were present to highlight the conditions that prevail at that particular school. It is believed to be the oldest national school still in use in the country, as the building is over 200 years old. The problem is that the majority of the students are not housed in the school building itself but in prefabs that are attached to or on the grounds of the school building. The prefabs and the building itself are no longer fit for purpose.

Successive boards of management have been promised action on a new school for the last 30 years, but no action has been taken. When they first raised the issue of the difficulties with accommodation at the school 1982, they were given temporary prefabs. Those temporary structures are still there, and both the building and the temporary structures are no longer fit for purpose. There are 99 or 109 students in the school, which has four class teachers and additional resource teachers.

Can the Minister of State outline to the House the progress that is being made on the provision of a new school building? A number of comments have been made in the media by people connected with the school, and they expressed the understandable opinion that there is a bias in the Department's allocation of resources against small rural schools such as the national school in Ballinkillen. I hope that the Minister of State will be in a position to ensure that a new school building will be provided as a matter of priority. I know that we are in straitened economic circumstances at the moment, and that it is difficult for the Minister of State to give commitments, but for a building that has been promised for 30 years for the oldest national school in the country, it would be appropriate that the Department of Education and Science would act swiftly on the provision of a new school building as soon as possible.