Lorraine Clifford Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and I congratulate him on his appointment to the Department of Education and Skills. I look forward to working with him over the coming months and years or however long the Administration remains in office. I am based in north County Dublin where there are many educational issues. I already been in correspondence with the Minister on a number of these and I look forward to engaging with him constructively over the coming months.

Today I want to raise the specific issue of St. Joseph's secondary school in Rush, County Dublin. Rush is a vibrant young growing town on the coast with one secondary school.Currently, there is a crisis facing the school and the town due to the fact that all the school places in first year for 2019 have been allocated and there are 102 children who have not been allocated a place. They are on a waiting list. This trend is set to continue in 2020, 2021 and after that given the current figures for students in the primary schools in the town. It is a very serious situation. Ultimately, the school needs a new school building because the current building is not fit to cope with the numbers at present and certainly not into the future. For example, there is no library in the school, no physical education, PE, hall and the science and woodwork rooms are undersized. I ask the Minister to work with the board of management and the principal to move forward with the plans for the new school.

However, to deal with the impending crisis in the town of Rush the school has made an application to the Minister for four extra prefab classrooms so the 102 children on the waiting list can be offered places for 2019. I ask the Minister to prioritise the application so the school can have certainty. There is great distress in the town. People want their children educated in their community and town. The neighbouring towns of Lusk and Skerries are also facing crises relating to oversubscription so it is not possible for the children to travel to those nearby towns. St. Joseph's has an excellent reputation in the town. It has a 100% rate of progression to third level or apprenticeships. It is a DEIS school and it has strong links with the Trinity Access programme. There is a very good community spirit around the school and it has links to various clubs and groups in the community. I ask the Minister to examine that application urgently to allow these children and their families to take part in the school community, to be educated in their own community and to give the school some certainty. He should then move on to considering a new school building for St. Joseph's in Rush.