Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State for being here to take this Commencement matter. I know she has a particular interest in County Kildare because she told me previously that her mam is from Ballymore Eustace in south Kildare. I am sure all the Minister of State's relatives there are very proud of her success. Fair play to her.

I am raising the issue of a proposed secondary school that will for up to 1,000 students. It has been agreed it will be delivered in two phases. Phase 1 will have 16 classes for 425 pupils and phase 2 will have an additional 21 classrooms, including provision for special educational needs, as well as PE facilities, a library, etc. This school is going to be on a shared campus with two primary schools, Gaelscoil Mhic Aodha and the Kildare Town Educate Together national school. Why is it that this school is so urgent? Basically, we have a major capacity issue in Kildare town and Newbridge. Kildare town only has one secondary school. For the past six or seven years, there has not been enough space for all the children from Kildare town, let alone those who come from places near at hand that do not have secondary schools, including Milltown, Suncroft, Cut Bush and the Curragh. The secondary schools in Newbridge and Kildare town are the feeder schools for these areas, even though some of these schools are not official feeder schools. This causes a huge problem when it comes to sixth class. The stress the students, parents and families are undergoing is huge. Every year, from October and November on, many calls are made to me and other public representatives in this regard.

The agreement was that the Curragh Community College would be given temporary accommodation by the Department of Defence to try to fill the gap. It has done an incredible job in difficult circumstances. In fact, I had a Commencement matter in the House not too long ago on providing proper transport from Newbridge and Kildare town, which is not happening. I understand from the Minister, however, that we should hopefully have something in place in September. This is now a crisis. Our schools in Newbridge and Kildare town are full. The school proposed for the site of the former Magee Barracks is to provide badly needed capacity in a modern building with four SEN units. This is to be welcomed.

It took some time for the contract to be signed with the vendor. The planning application was lodged in October 2023. It took a year to get planning permission. An appeal to An Bord Pleanála was granted in January 2025. To be fair, the board dealt with the matter quite quickly. The issue mainly concerned the traffic management plan.I am aware the NTA had signed off on a 115-page plan from Kildare County Council in regard to that. This project is being managed under the accelerated delivery of architectural planning and tendering, ADAPT, programme. It is currently at stage 2b. It had been agreed that the school would be open for August 2026. We still have enough time for that to happen, but I am concerned because we are only at the tender stage of the process. Every commitment I have been given, once we had the initial delays, was for a date of August 2026. We must have this school open and functioning, even if it is just in phase 1 at that point. That is the reason for my question. I have been raising the issue on a continual basis and I will continue to seek updates.