Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I am also glad to be sharing time on this very important matter for families in south County Kildare. I, like my colleague, have raised this continually since becoming a Member of the Seanad. Indeed, I think this is the third time I have raised it on the Commencement.

We need a temporary three- to four-year plan. We have just heard we may have a school that was promised and announced in 2018 but we still do not know that with any certainty. There is no certainty for the families ringing my office and others and crying down the phone. That is what is happening at the moment. This school was promised in 2018. It was to be a new 1,000-pupil school, yet we do not even have a site for it. That is not acceptable.

I wanted to bring some of the parents' worries and concerns to the Minister of State this morning. As he can see, I have received much correspondence. I will mention some of it:

From day one, the application process put huge amounts of stress on the children. The school spoke directly to the children, asking them to relay the message to parents. This caused panic, a feeling of being overwhelmed and my 11-year-old couldn't understand why she had been told she had less chance of getting a place because she is the eldest. She was so distraught in school that a teacher had to take her aside to assure her it would work out. It hasn't worked out. She is number 35 on the waiting list.

Another parent wrote:

My son is 11 years old. Last Friday he received an unsuccessful application for his secondary school place in Kildare Town. Since then he won't go out playing with his friends.

Here is one more example for the Minister of State:

As a parent in Monasterevin we selected our local school because we were told there was a new school in Monasterevin. To say we were shocked when we got no offer for a place for our daughter is an understatement. Our daughter is worried about this. She would rather attend the same school as her friends.

And so it goes on and on. In addition, I received a call this morning from a principal of a rural school in south Kildare who said that parents are now choosing urban centres to send their children to primary school, and bypassing her school, because they think they will have a greater chance of getting a place in a secondary school in Kildare South. This is a crisis. I am glad the Minister of State is in the Chamber and I look forward to what he has to say.