Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat. I thank the Minister of State for taking this debate. It relates to the Killester-Raheny-Clontarf Educate Together school, which has been given sanction for opening in September of this year after a long campaign. In fact, it is a year since I held a public meeting in Clontarf trying to get a campaign going. As a result of the patronage competition, shall we call it, Educate Together came out on top and an announcement was made that the school would open in September of this year. Many parents are delighted to hear that. However, I am slightly perturbed by the news that it will be a one-stream school as opposed to a two-stream Educate Together school, which is also sanctioned for Dublin 13 in Howth.

In that period of time around and after the campaign, parents have been asking where the school will be located. The catchment area for the school is quite defined. It borders the Malahide Road, the Clontarf Road, the Tonlegee Road and the Kilbarrack Road. We were assuming that the school would be housed within that section, but what has actually happened is that two solutions have been found in the one area. Both new Educate Together primary schools are going to be housed together in the Suttonians Rugby Football Club, outside the catchment area. This smacks to me of a lazy decision by the Department. It is understandable to find one solution for the Dublin 13 Educate Together, and put it in Suttonians temporarily, but to lump the other Educate Together in there, outside of its catchment area, does not make any sense at all to me. What has happened now is that the momentum behind the school has been undermined. Parents who live in Clontarf, Raheny or Killester, who were intending to send their children to this school, do not really fancy the idea of going all the way out to Sutton and back, and have since withdrawn their children's' names from the enrolment in the school.

I would like to give some background on this. There have been numerous attempts to establish a multidenominational school in the Clontarf area and the communities around Clontarf going back probably 30 years, and they have all been unsuccessful. Schools have ended up in Glasnevin, Marino or North Bay in Kilbarrack. There has never been a successful campaign until this one, and now we find that the very location of the school is going to be outside the catchment area. The Department needs to re-engage with the process to find a temporary location within the catchment area, which should not be that difficult. It has made a lazy decision in order to locate the school in Suttonians Rugby Football Club, alongside the other Educate Together school. The starting up of a school and the ethos and momentum that surrounds it is so important in the early days, and now we find a number of parents who are very disappointed. First, it is a one-stream school, so it is difficult to get into in the first place.Second, if a child is offered a place, it will, as we have discovered, have to travel all the way to Sutton and back. A return trip from Clontarf to Sutton is about 14 km. It is not reasonable for parents to drive infants to Sutton and back just so they can access multidenominational education.

I ask the Minister of State to engage with his Department to reconsider the final decision to use Suttonians Rugby Football Club as the temporary location of Killester-Raheny-Clontarf Educate Together school, re-engage in the process to find a temporary location within the catchment area and ensure this school gets off to the best possible start.