Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of Stepaside Educate Together secondary school. Stepaside has been in the news quite a lot recently in the context of its Garda station. As a local resident, I can confirm that it is an ever-growing area, with many issues causing concern to the local population, not just the Garda station but also education facilities, community facilities, housing and so forth.

The Minister will be aware that the secondary school to which I refer opened in August 2016. I had the pleasure, along with Councillor Emma Blain, of attending the opening. The school opened in prefabricated classrooms in the car park of a local rugby club in Kiltiernan. The school has moved for this academic year to prefabricated buildings on a site being shared by Stepaside Educate Together national school in the Belarmine development. It is on the building list of the Department for 2018. The question that the school community and the wider Stepaside community is asking is where the permanent, 1,000 pupil school will actually be located.

This is an excellent school which I have had the pleasure of visiting many times to meet pupils, the principal, teachers, parents and others who are involved in it. It is a leading school in terms of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, education, with its revolutionary Bridge21 programme. It has embraced, in its short life, a healthy school ethos, has established a football team, organised many extracurricular activities as well as winning both an amber and green flag in its first year of operation. There is a massive demand for places in this school. It already has a huge school population, with strong enrolment and a waiting list. My own niece is one of many children who has already received a response to a letter of query. There are three Educate Together national schools in the immediate area feeding into this secondary school, as well as a number of other schools, including a significant number of minority faith national schools.

I must stress that this is a rapidly growing area. Indeed, it is one of the fastest growing local electoral areas in the country. I had the privilege of representing it for just under seven years on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and I must say that for the entire time that I served on the council up until today, discussion centred around the question of when the area would get a secondary school. During my second year on the council, we agreed the relocation of a fee-paying secondary school from Blackrock to Sandyford. That school is now open in a fabulous new building and is thriving. Other than that, however, the only other two secondary schools are just outside the local electoral area. The local electoral area has a population equivalent to that of County Leitrim but has only one small, private, all-girls secondary school.

Sites have been identified under the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county development plan for school use but I fear that an opportunity has been missed because the Department has still not identified a permanent site. The cost of land is rising rapidly, especially in this part of south Dublin. The school itself is growing and demand for places is also growing. Many of the pupils currently enrolled in the school may go through all six years of secondary level education without ever getting into a permanent school. This must be a priority for the Department. I am hopeful that an announcement will be made soon because the current accommodation is unsuitable for even medium-term, not to mention long-term, use. I ask the Minister to provide an update on the future location of this school.