Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. I am delighted that my Commencement matter is being taken but it is interesting that I have come here from a meeting of the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, where both the Minister for Education and the Minister of State at the Department of Education are appearing. I asked whether this Commencement matter could be deferred but that was not possible. I appreciate that the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, is present on behalf of the Department of Education but we need to find a way to work out the issue better.

When I tabled this matter, it felt a little like Groundhog Day because I spent almost four years in the Dáil talking about the severe shortage of places at secondary level for primary school children in Newbridge and Kildare town. The South Kildare Educate Together, SKET, campaign did incredible work during those four years. Its research and statistics suggest that at least 415 students will be without a place in Newbridge and Kildare by 2025. That research was conducted four years ago but things have accelerated since then. Much building is happening, and while new homes are always welcome for those who need them, the infrastructure has not been put in place. Parents have contacted me day after day, week after week, over the past five years, and already this year, that has started for next year. I contacted every primary school within the catchment area of Newbridge and Kildare town between yesterday and this morning. For the current sixth classes, in the case of every school, at least five children have not got a secondary school place for next September, while the numbers for fifth class are even worse.

Parents in Newbridge, for example, have come to me who work and live in the town, whose children attended primary school there and whose older children attended secondary school there, but they cannot get a place. In Nurney, a small village within the catchment of Kildare town, children cannot get a place in their local school in Kildare town. The whole issue became more difficult because of the problems with St. Paul's Secondary School in Monasterevin where, thankfully, classes have now started. Children in fourth class are now having to try to find a place in another school because they feel there might be a better chance of getting into secondary school two years later.

This is incredibly frustrating for everybody - parents and the school community - but it is not the schools' fault. More than two years ago, a commitment was given by the then Minister for Education and Skills that a new 1,000-pupil school given to this area would replace the Curragh education and training board school and serve the needs of people in Newbridge, Kildare and the Curragh but nothing has happened. The most recent update I got suggested that a particular site was being considered, but nothing happened in the year and a half between December 2018 and the present Government coming into place. It is now a crisis. School communities have been impacted so greatly by Covid-19 and young people, as we know, are feeling the negativity and stress. They and their parents are further stressed by the possibility that their child will not have a secondary school place. I would greatly appreciate the Minister of State taking this on board. I am looking forward to hearing his response. I will take the matter up with the Minister for Education when I return to the education committee meeting after this debate.