Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the class from Swords. A day will come as the teachers know, when it will be a compliment rather than an insult to be classed as younger than you are. In time, they will see that as a big compliment.

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber and thank him for taking the matter. I hoped the Minister, Deputy Foley, would be able to take it but obviously she is busy. It is a busy time.

I know she is aware of this school in Tipperary and I hope she will do what she can in her remit to support it. I would be grateful if the Minister of State relays some of the points I make today back to her. He is from a similar constituency to Tipperary and will understand the importance of small rural schools and the role they play not only in the village but for families across the county.

Golden National School is one of those small schools in rural Ireland. Slightly fewer than 100 children attend it. It is a four-teacher school and the principal is Mr. James McCarthy who was a pupil back in the day and is now principal. The chairperson of the board of management is Mr. Michael Ormond. They have a challenge in modernising the school.

The school was built in the 1930s and an extension was added in the 1980s but essentially nothing has been done since then. If the Minister of State were to travel across the country to see all of the local primary schools in small villages, he would be hard pressed to find one in as much need of an upgrade as Golden National School. I was there a number of weeks ago with the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan. My colleagues, Councillors Michael Fitzgerald and Declan Burgess, were there and, as it is his home town, the former Minister, Mr. Tom Hayes, was present.

We visited the school to raise a flag but also to look at an application the school is making for additional accommodation for classrooms and an autism spectrum disorder, ASD, classroom. The school is fortunate to have a lot of space to build on but the problem is that applications were made before and they were refused. At the moment, two classrooms are outside the school grounds in the local community hall. The two classrooms house third and fourth class; and fifth and sixth class. This means that four of the classes are not even on the grounds of Golden National School. It has also had issues with electricity, fire requirements and health and safety requirements. This is a place in drastic need of an upgrade. The school put forward an application for additional accommodation before and it was refused on a technicality. We have a situation where third, fourth, fifth and sixth classes are not even on the school grounds because we do not have classrooms for them. We need to prioritise places like this that have not had any upgrade over the past few decades.

The Minister of State will have seen in the past few years that this Government has invested hugely in education. The Minister knows and the Minister of State will know from higher education, that we have invested heavily in education. As a Government we prioritise it. This school has applied for two additional classrooms and an ASD unit. It is not excessive by any stretch of the imagination. We are building a school in my home town of Cahir. It is a redevelopment of a girls' and a boys' school. It is a massive school. A lot of money was put into it and that is welcome, but the Golden school is just as important as all of the others and it needs investment to be able to go forward. It is a school that is progressing. It expects more pupils to join in the next few years because businesses are employing more people in the area and the staff want to send their children to Golden National School. They need this accommodation to be able to take them. It is not ideal for parents who are sending their children to school to find out that four of the classes are in the community hall next door.