Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my colleague, the Minister of State, to the Chamber. This morning I am asking for an update from the Minister of Education on timelines associated with the employment of a design team and the preparation of plans for the proposed new build for Summercove NS in Kinsale. The last decade or more has seen significant development of how we fund our education infrastructure. The days of prefabs in every school has moved on. Many schools in my part of the country have seen really significant development and that should be acknowledged. In Kinsale, in particular, there have been extensions to the community school, and the Gaelscoil, after a long debacle, has got a site. However, there is one anomaly in Kinsale, namely Summercover NS. It is a busy, thriving national school and a significant part of our community. In recent decades it has been striving to secure redevelopment. There was a range of issues including one with a site and with planning. I am pleased to see a site has been purchased and the trustees of the diocese have moved into the space and completed the transfer of the site. Now we need the Department of Education to step up and allocate the resources to provide a design team that can lodge planning permission. That design team needs to look at the new site being proposed and lodge planning permission as soon as we can for the pupils, teachers, the board of management and principal who is leaving on 22 October. They have done so much to make sure this site was available. Now we need to progress with the Department to make sure we build this new school in Summercove. Kinsale is a thriving town and the population figures from the census of 2016 are totally out of date because the development we have seen there in the past five to six years has been amazing. Therefore, the need for educational infrastructure on the ground is much warranted. I hope we can prioritise this project and put a design team in place and then move forward with the planning because we need to provide this school for this industrious part of Cork. The students, parents and board of management have done so much in recent decades to bring this site to fruition.