Lorraine Higgins (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank her for taking this matter on the Adjournment. My home town of Athenry is a growing urban area the population of which has increased from 1,000 during pre-boom times to 5,000 currently and, as a consequence, the local schools, and in particular the Presentation College in Athenry, is experiencing over-capacity and ongoing demand for school places. This school was built to accommodate considerably fewer students than the approximately 1,000 students currently attending the school. More troubling is that of the student population, at least half of the students are housed in prefabs. Furthermore, other difficulties are being presented, particularly to parents in the town and those from surrounding parishes such as Monivea, Clarinbridge, Craughwell and Kilcolgan who are trying to get their children educated at this school, which has a wonderful academic record, but to no avail as a result of the demands that are placed on it.

The school would like to be able to accommodate all these children, and there is a significant over-capacity issue, but because of the serious over-utilisation of general space in the school and that half the school population study in prefabs, health and safety risks may well be presented to all and sundry.

Adequately spaced classrooms are in short supply, as is specialist accommodation for the school. While the school has received funding in the past for upgrading the facilities and the addition of temporary classroom facilities, for which the principal of the school and the board of the management are extremely grateful to the Department, it is telling that the Department has acknowledged the unsuitability of the facility when it placed the school on a five-year list for capital building works and earmarked a 20-acre site for development on the outskirts of Athenry.

I understand that in December 2011 the project has entered into a design process whereby a team of architects and engineers planned the form and structure of this new school but despite promises at that time that the school would be up and running by 2014, it is clear now that this will not be possible. The board of management has been very proactive in proceeding through the various processes and it has, as such, completed its part of the deal. However, information to which I have become privy and that has been circulating locally suggests that other business organisations involved in significant infrastructure projects within Athenry, which are to be earmarked for development locally, have grave reservations about the viability of this site from a planning perspective. I am afraid that may stymie any plans to have a school built on this site that is earmarked for development. It calls into question the suitability of the site in its totality and if that is the case, I suggest to the Minister that we should not delay and should seek alternative sites to ensure that the progress of this school continues without any undue delay.

In light of what I have stated, I request that the Minister outline the current status of the application for new accommodation, including an indication of the timeframe within which this school project will be delivered. If the details I have referred to in my contribution are accurate, the Minister of State or the Minister, Deputy Quinn, might be so good as to inform me.