Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for facilitating this Commencement debate and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, for attending. The building belonging to the Technological University, TU, of Dublin on the Lower Rathmines Road has been vacated because of the university's relocation to the Grangegorman campus. Space is now available to the Department of Education in the substantial buildings and prefabs on the former TU Dublin site.A proposal to temporarily accommodate the Harcourt Terrace Educate Together school within the main building vacated by the Technological University Dublin, TU Dublin, has been made by the Department, with a site visit undertaken by the Educate Together school principal last week. Rathmines College of Further Education, which is located in Rathmines Town Hall directly across the road, has been experiencing a severe shortage of classroom space for some time, and has requested that space be allocated on a long-term basis within the main building, which has been designed for third level education and was originally part of the College of Commerce there. Facilities in that main building include steep staircases and limited basement toilets, making the building less suitable for the needs of primary school children, in terms of health and safety requirements, and make it more suitable for third level students. A number of prefab buildings, including a kitchen and staff area and a general purpose room, and access to outdoor yard areas, indicate that the prefabs may be a more suitable temporary location for the Educate Together school community while it awaits the completion of its new Harcourt Terrace school in two years' time. Rathmines College of Further Education is in need of classroom space for its more than 700 students who are cramped in the current facilities in the Rathmines Town Hall.

A move would allow for the restoration of the stunning but disused 19th century Rathmines concert hall inside the town hall building. That amenity could be brought back into use as a civic, cultural and educational amenity for the whole community. I and other representatives in the area have formed a group called the Friends of Rathmines Town Hall, and we have been working on the possibility of the restoration of the concert hall there. The town hall and the former DIT conservatory of music buildings were visited by the Minister of State with responsibility for heritage, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, and his officials in the last two weeks. The Minister of State's Department seems enthusiastic that the project be realised with co-operation between his Department, the Department of Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, and in the first instance the Department of Education. I fully appreciate that there is a short-term need for accommodation at the Rathmines campus, and I fully appreciate that restoration of the concert hall in the Rathmines Town Hall building will take time, but I ask that the Departments in question, and especially the Minister of State's Department and the Department of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Simon Harris, would look at the needs of Rathmines College of Further Education and facilitate the sharing of the space, which has now been vacated by the Technological University Dublin, and that all interests can be progressed in parallel so the Rathmines College of Further Education can have the classrooms and other facilities it so vitally needs at this stage. I am interested to hear what the Minister of State has to say about this.