Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the announcement last week by the Minister for Education and Skills of 42 new schools to be opened in the next number of years. This is a highly positive move, both for the country as a whole, but particularly in the area from which I come. I would ask the Leader to bring the Minister for Education and Skills to the House for a debate on this announcement to work out the timeline of when these schools will be opened, when the patronages will be awarded and how communities can feed into that. I would also like to see an update on those schools recently opened that are still awaiting permanent accommodation, be it Ballinteer Educate Together national school in my area that is waiting on a planning application, or Stepaside Educate Together secondary school that is still in prefabs shared with the local national school. These are all fundamentally important and need to be debated as soon as possible.