James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire nua. Go n-éirí leis sa phost nua tábhachtach seo atá aige.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to take this. The lack of secondary school places in Rush and Skerries is a huge concern for parents. Fingal is one of the fastest growing parts of the country, if not in Europe. We have a very large young population and this is not changing but is likely to rise. We found ourselves with the extraordinary situation where children in both villages, or towns as they are now with a population in excess of 10,000 each, cannot be guaranteed a place in their own secondary school in their own town.

St. Joseph's is the only secondary school in Rush and has a student population of approximately 740. It opened its doors to new students and 220 people turned up on the day. As a consequence of this, we have 102 children on a waiting list and 102 families terrified about their child and not knowing what to do. There is a similar situation with a long waiting list to get into the secondary school in Skerries. These are all in one catchment area. Not only can they not now go to school in their own town, they cannot go to school in the next town over. They will be forced to go to God knows where. It is not satisfactory.

We have known that this growth has been taking place and that more houses are planned, yet here we are in this situation. For the next five years, St. Joseph's will have to limit the intake of new students to 120 when it is getting in excess of 200 applications. Some 89% of the 102 on the waiting list are from Rush. The trend will continue for at least five years, as I said. There are not alternatives in the immediate area.

I have a formal request for a meeting with officials from the Department of Education and Skills to meet members of the board of St. Joseph's to progress the purchase of approximately 14 acres for a new school and playing pitches in Rush. Will the Minister arrange that meeting next month because the school site needs to be bought now? The road access will be resolved in early December when the compulsory purchase order, CPO, is completed. Two weeks ago, the board put in a formal application for emergency accommodation so that we can accommodate as many of these young people as possible, yet we have had no response.

Skerries community college has encountered the same problem, as I pointed out. We are getting emails from frantic, worried parents in Skerries who cannot get their kids into school in their own town. This never happened before. This problem has been highlighted in the local newspaper, the Skerries News, and it is causing turmoil. People are very worried and we need to have this new emergency accommodation put in place as soon as possible to give people some certainty. They do not know where they are going to send their kids next year and that is not good enough. The community college has planning permission for a permanent extension of five classrooms and other key facilities granted by Fingal County Council in 2017.

This problem is not going away. We need to get this temporary accommodation put in place in Rush, we need the prefabs for Skerries community college, and we need an outline of the future for both of these schools. This problem is only going to get worse. We have the best of teachers giving the best of education to our young people, preparing them for the world, in surroundings that are utterly unsatisfactory in the case of Rush and which provide utter uncertainty for parents, which is grossly unfair.