Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to be as swift as possible. The issue I am raising today goes back to a meeting in 2009, shortly after I had been elected to the council for the first time, in what was then the Bewley's Hotel in Leopardstown. A commitment was made to bring an Educate Together school to the Ballinteer-Stepaside area. Exactly ten years later, we now have two national schools and a secondary school, only one of which is in a full-time permanent building. I am delighted that a site has been secured for Stepaside Educate Together secondary school but the big news of the last few weeks has been An Bord Pleanála's decision to grant permission for a permanent home for Ballinteer Educate Together national school. The Minister of State is the fifth Minister with whom I have brought this up over the past three and a half years in the Seanad. The fact that the project has moved on from the planning stage is a huge push forward but, needless to say, the entire school community including the parents, the pupils, the teachers, and everyone else connected to it have quite a simple question: what comes next and when? What actions are being taken by the Department to jump on the opportunity presented by this positive planning decision, to get tender documents together and to roll out a timeline? This is progressing in conjunction with the provision of a new physical education hall for St. Tiernan's community school, which will be adjacent to the site. The real question is quite simple. When can the pupils, teachers, and parents of Ballinteer Educate Together national school expect children and teachers to go into their new permanent home?