Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)

I also extend a warm welcome to Stella O'Loughlin. She can see the inner workings of the Seanad at first hand. I begin with a tribute to Kevin Geraghty, a wonderful and warm Fianna Fáil stalwart from Collon, County Louth, who passed away recently. He was in his 90th year and was a member of the third generation of his family in Fianna Fáil in County Louth. His father Nicholas founded the first Fianna Fáil cumann in 1927, which will shortly be celebrating 100 years in existence. Sadly, he was predeceased by his brother Paddy only a matter of weeks ago and another almost-brother, Peter Murphy. The three of them assisted me greatly during my campaign last year in Collon. I wish his loved ones the very best, including his brother Larry and Larry's wife Carmel, who were also of great assistance to me.

One of the reasons I wanted to speak today was to raise the issue of school places. As we know, we are back at school but for many parents the summer was a time for uncertainty, particularly if you were a new arrival or had moved house. In Drogheda, County Louth, we buck the trend a little bit because we are building a lot of houses. I live in the north of the town and there will be 7,500 new houses fairly soon. We are talking about thousands of houses and, unfortunately, the school places are not tallying with those. I worked with five or six parents over the summer who had received or bought a house and automatically assumed they would receive a school place as well. We need a debate with the Minister for education on what co-ordination there should be between houses being built and where schools are being built in order to facilitate the children coming into our communities.

Lastly, I raise an issue that I have raised before but circumstances do change. It is probably timely to mention the second railway station for the north side of Drogheda as well. I mentioned all of the houses being built. The current railway station on the south side of the town is under sever pressure. People are almost not able to use it because of the lack of parking and not being able to cross the town in time to reach it. With the second part of the port access northern cross route confirmed to begin in January of next year, now is the time to really organise the third phase, which is where the railway station and the bridge for it needs to be built. The developers are there and more land is being rezoned for more housing. Drogheda United is also going to place its stadium there. The money will be coming in and a great deal of money would not be needed for that. My colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, and I work strongly in east Meath. We need to look at a railway station for Bettystown as well. This is a national issue. In order to help our transport and our commuters, we need to be looking with the Minister for Transport, Darragh O'Brien, and debating whether these new stations are a possibility. They are a small amount of money for a big win.