Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House and taking this matter on the Adjournment on behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills. This is the second time I have raised the issue at St. Mary's national school in Virginia, County Cavan. When the Minister announced details of his infrastructure plan for 2012 last December, the school was omitted. When he announced his five year infrastructure plan in April, which outlines the major projects needed to cater for demographic growth, the school was again omitted. I would like to focus on the school's concerns about this issue and in particular, the use of the GIS system by the Department.

The major growth experienced in Virginia and surrounding areas has resulted in an influx of families and an increased demand for school accommodation. The most recent census figures indicate that there has been a 31.6% growth rate in the population of Virginia between 2006 and 2011. This is largely due to its location along the commuter belt and its close proximity to Dublin. In March the school enrolled its 80th student since September and enrolment now stands at 380 students, but the board of management and community do not believe that this is reflected in the school building programme for 2012.

School enrolment has doubled in the last few years and as a result, there has been massive expenditure on temporary accommodation. We are now at the stage where some of the prefabs need to be replaced with additional accommodation. The project was included in the 2011 school building programme and was at an early architectural planning stage, but it seems to have been stuck there for a long time. Now we want to move this project and get it to the next stage. Due to population growth, pressure is coming on primary school accommodation earlier than in the secondary school sector. As well as that, 77% of the fifth and sixth class pupils in St. Mary's national school were born outside of the parish, so there has been a large influx of primary school students to the area. Fifty two local authority houses have been built and they are on the verge of being allocated. From my dealings in Cavan and in the area, I know that many young families will be moving into those houses. In a county ravaged by emigration, it is good to see that there is population growth, but we need to make sure that the facilities and the services are up to date to deal with it.

The geographical information system, or GIS, used by the Department has its strengths, but we have concerns about it that we would like to be borne in mind when decisions are made on replacing the prefabs. We believe that the figures fail to take into account when one family moves from one location to another. The last time I raised this issue, child benefit was mentioned as an example. However, the child benefit payment does not require a change of address, so the GIS capacity and facility is only relevant if the bank details change. There is no bank at all Virginia at the moment. Most people do not change their bank due to online banking facilities. We need to be careful about this and due to the influx of people into Virginia, the community is being affected by the lack of movement onto the next stage of planning.

To recap, the school was originally built for six teachers but it now has 20 teachers and nine additional support staff. It is an intolerable situation for the community, the pupils and staff. There is a high level of frustration about the delay and I urge the Minister of State to bring this back to his colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, to try to expedite the project and highlight once again the discrepancies in the use of the geographical information system. I hope this project will move forward because the school has been waiting eight years for new accommodation to be built. If it is omitted, as it already has been from the current five year programme, it will be at least 2020 before the new accommodation is built. With such large population growth this is not a feasible option for the town.