Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for remaining in the House to deal with the matters raised on the Adjournment. He is familiar with the Tyrellstown area and the need for the Educate Together school to be put in place as soon as possible. I understand we have a new system for dealing with planning for the provision of this school. The Department of Education and Science and Fingal County Council are to prepare a plan together which must be lodged with the county council. I seek clarification on how this system will operate.

More importantly, I want a date for when the plans will be lodged. The Educate Together organisation has expressed concern at the delay in lodging the plans. It is important that we would proceed with matters as quickly as possible to ensure the school will be in place for September 2006. The children will be in temporary accommodation this September. We cannot afford to delay the planning process because if an objection were made it could delay matters even further. I seek reassurance from the Minister of State that the plans will be lodged as soon as possible and that perhaps a timeframe would be given for the commencement of construction.

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Terry for raising this matter on the Adjournment. The substance of this matter is the need for the Minister for Education and Science to report on the timeframe for submitting a planning application to Fingal County Council for the provision of a primary school at Tyrellstown, Dublin 15, on behalf of the patron, Educate Together. To answer the Senator's question succinctly, the timeframe is today.

Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)
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Perhaps it would not have been if I had not raised the matter on the Adjournement?

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I assure the Senator that as a Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science I have taken a very close interest in the development of a national school at Tyrellstown where Educate Together has been identified as the patron. I am grateful for this opportunity to outline to the House the position regarding demand for school places in the general Dublin 15 area.

Last autumn I had very detailed consultations with the relevant offices in the Department about this subject. I am glad to say the decisions arrived at in principle at that stage have been a considerable success in the area. There is no primary school crisis in the Dublin 15 area at present because the school planning unit of the Department has put the necessary measures in place in good time to deal with the issues that arose.

The Department is fully conscious that the Dublin 15 area is a rapidly developing one with a substantial growth in population recorded in the last census and ongoing growth in population since then. As the Senator indicated, the Department has been maintaining a close liaison with Fingal County Council about the growth in the number of house completions in the area. As a result of that development there has been a marked increase in the demand for school places, especially at primary level. To tackle this issue, the Department is taking steps to increase the capacity of existing schools and to develop two new greenfield site schools.

I am sure Senator Terry is well aware of the building project at the Sacred Heart national school, Huntstown, which will increase its capacity to 32 classrooms. This project is nearing completion. In addition, a building project to provide a new school building for Mary Mother of Hope national school at Littlepace-Castaheany is currently on site. To further expand capacity at this school, the Department has agreed with the school's board of management that the school will reorganise to form a junior and senior school which will facilitate an annual four stream junior infant intake.

The Department is also pursuing the issue of site acquisition for Castaheany Educate Together national school and the provision of a permanent school building for that school will be treated with the highest priority. It is envisaged that this particular school will grow to a 24 classroom school which will facilitate an annual intake of three junior infant classes. In the interim, temporary accommodation has been secured to meet the school's immediate needs for next September.

The position with regard to Tyrellstown is that Educate Together was recently granted provisional recognition by the Department to open a primary school in the Tyrellstown area with effect from September 2005. Given the nature of the school recognition process, provisional recognition by the Department was granted only a couple of weeks ago. Notwithstanding that, the school planning unit in the Department was planning for the establishment of the school as early as last autumn. This is why we are in a position to bring forward the plans at this stage. I understand the deadline for the lodging of the necessary planning application is today. The architect is in possession of all the relevant information held by the Department as of yesterday. I cannot say the planning application has been lodged but I can say the architect was, as of yesterday, in a position to lodge the necessary planning application.

Senator Terry referred to the arrangements that exist between Fingal County Council and the Department. They are not quite as formal as she suggested and they relate more to the question of site identification. The Department had extensive negotiations with the county council to assist in the identification of a suitable site for this development. The lands in question were within the ownership of the county council but difficulties were encountered regarding the identification of the site. Unfortunately, two possibilities had to be ruled out in preplanning discussions. I am pleased, however, to be able to inform the Senator that a third site option was subsequently identified and the consultant architect for the project is lodging a planning application for this site today.

The Department has received assurances from Fingal County Council that this application will be processed as quickly as possible. Tenders for temporary accommodation will be sought pending the granting of planning permission to expedite matters. I agree with the Senator that, in the event of a third party objection to planning permission, we will have to address the matter when it arises. I hope there will be no such objection but, unfortunately, objections have been lodged to some school developments in Dublin 15, notwithstanding that these developments at the sites in question had been signalled clearly in the county development plan for many years previously. Having said that, we will deal with objections if they occur, in which case I may be back in the Seanad addressing the matter. However, we are acting on the assumption that planning permission will be granted and that the school can be established on-site as quickly as possible.

The Department is grateful to the officials in Fingal, with whom it is working very closely. There is no general arrangement of the type the Senator indicated because, as is the case regarding many new schools, we have to identify a site in private ownership rather than one in the ownership of the council. The Department has put considerable effort into resolving the Tyrellstown issue for this September, as it has done in respect of the rest of the Dublin 15 area. I assure the Senator that these efforts will continue to ensure that all pupils seeking places for next September will be facilitated. There were two other areas in Dublin 15 with a possible shortfall in places. One was the Ongar-Castaheany area and the other was the Carpenterstown area. In both areas, the Department took very rapid action to ensure that school places were made available to those who sought them. We hope this will also be the case in respect of the Tyrellstown school on its completion.