Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I almost knocked down one or two of our guests when I was racing to the Chamber too but they kindly left me a gap. I welcome the kids from Longford and acknowledge their local Senator and the work he does for education in this House.

It is timely because my question relates to my own primary school in Grange. I would like a debate with the Minister for Education. Schools around the country have been lucky in terms of the funding available for extensions and the building of new primary and secondary schools. We in Grange made a successful application to the Department of Education. However, because of rising costs, the expense involved in the application have increased. The school went back to the Department of Education with a small increase and have been waiting some time for a decision to be made. By the time the decision has been made, costs will have risen again. The principal, Marie Keating, along with the board of management, has done phenomenal work. The teachers are phenomenal in the work they do and the commitment they give. This is an important extension for the school in Grange. I ask the Minister to speed up that process in any way possible. I know there are schools across the country that need funding but it is important that it is done as quickly as possible. It would be timely to have a debate with the Minister for Education on that subject anyway.

I have asked in the past for a debate with the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Humphreys, about all the schemes she gives to rural areas across the country, including my county of Tipperary. Those schemes include CLÁR and the town and village renewal scheme. Those schemes serve an important purpose for areas such as mine in Tipperary. To give one example, the village of Drangan in Tipperary has put forward a CLÁR application to do up bits of the playground and to resurface the road. It is an important application. My colleague, Councillor Mark Fitzgerald, has been working hard on this issue. People in the community, such as Ailish O'Brien and others, have done an awful lot of work on this application. It is important to get decisions made as quickly as possible on those applications. We are lucky that we are able to fund so many of these kinds of playgrounds and community projects but we need decisions to be made as quickly as we can to get those projects over the line. That was a very good playground and it needs to have work done to fix equipment and things like that. I would be very grateful if we could get a decision as quickly as possible.