Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister for Education and Skills to the House. Senator Neale Richmond is first and he has four minutes to make his opening remarks.

Neale Richmond (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to speak on this issue. I am very grateful to the Minister for coming to the House and I also thank him and his officials for their engagement with me on this and many other issues in the educational sphere in recent weeks.

I bring this matter to the floor of the House following repeated and frustrating correspondence between the local school community and departmental officials. I want to go through the background to this matter and to outline the outstanding issues that need to be addressed urgently and clearly. This goes back to initial meetings on a new school that I attended in 2010. Unfortunately, after much initial progress and enthusiasm from all parties there has been a continuous cycle of expectation, disappointment and anticipation relating to this project which is part of the Department's six-year capital programme.

In the short term, a series of questions need to be answered and I would appreciate if the Minister could provide answers today or at least send on the information to me and the school community later this week. What facilities will be made available for Ballinteer Educate Together national school in its short-term accommodation in Notre Dame? How many classrooms will be made available in that short-term accommodation? What size classrooms will be made available? How many pupils will be on campus from the other two schools at the Notre Dame site? What school start and end times are envisaged for Ballinteer Educate Together national school at the short-term site? What traffic management plans will be put in place? In light of the decision to bring all schools on campus this September, what arrangements have been made with the other two schools at the Notre Dame site? What arrangements have been or can be made to provide a school bus service to the Notre Dame campus?

As the Minister is aware from previous correspondence, it is my personal opinion that the short-term plan to move Ballinteer Educate Together national school to the site of Notre Dame in Churchtown is far from ideal, putting parents under undue hardship and diminishing the strong links already made by the school to the local community. In the context of the medium-term plan to build a permanent home for the school adjacent to St. Tiernan's community school, the school community is understandably frustrated and angered by the perceived delay and difficulty in dealing with departmental officials, in terms of getting answers. In that context, I have another series of questions that need to be answered and I would appreciate if the Minister could respond today or send on further information at a later date. First, at what stage is the purchase of the required land to allow for acceptable access to the new school? At what stage is the planning application? When will the planning application be lodged? What needs to be resolved before the application can be lodged? When will the school be built and when will the permanent school be opened?

The questions I am putting to the Minister this morning are all pretty straightforward. As we approach the end of the school year, a very large school community is deeply frustrated and angry at the severe delays in obtaining answers to legitimate questions. My office has been inundated with correspondence relating to this issue for quite some time from parents in the immediate area and from a catchment area that stretches way beyond the local environs into Bray in County Wicklow and across to Tallaght, County Dublin. I most recently attended a parent teacher association meeting at the school on Monday. The levels of confusion and uncertainty are worrying. I ask the Minister to prioritise this school and to ensure that the maximum levels of transparent information are provided regularly.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Richmond for raising this issue. I can understand the concerns of parents because the situation is unusual, in that temporary accommodation has to be moved to a new site. However, this does signify the success of the school.

There are nine mainstream classes which will increase to 11 in September 2017. That necessitates a move from the current site. We are fortunate in that earlier this year, as Senator Neale knows, the Department completed the purchase of the Notre Dame site, which offers a solution to the need for Ballinteer Educate Together national school to move, pending completion of its own school premises on the St. Tiernan's site. Obviously, the provisions for the school on the new site are being worked on by my Department.A technical assessment of the campus is currently being carried out. We will need to complete that before we can answer a number of the questions the Senator raised. We will seek to accommodate, to the best of our ability, the needs of parents without there being any disruption. I took a note of the points the Senator raised specifically regarding traffic plans, co-ordination with other schools and so on. I will endeavour to get back to him with responses to those in so far as that is possible, but some of them will necessitate the completion of the technical assessment.

On the wider issue of the building a school for Ballinteer Educate Together national school, the Senator will be aware of the planning history. A planning application was submitted to the relevant local authority but it was refused on grounds of site access. That decision was appealed to the An Bord Pleanála but subsequently withdrawn to facilitate an amended outline planning permission but that, in turn, was refused on similar grounds. I can understand the frustration that has built up. A series of attempts were evidently made in good faith but they have not been successful in meeting the needs. While an appeal was lodged on foot of the decision on the second planning permission application, it has since been withdrawn and the Department and the local authority are meeting to discuss appropriate access routes with a view to a further planning application being submitted as soon as possible.

I can understand the Deputy saying that we should be able to clearly trace details of land purchase, planning permission and then track the process out on a very clear critical path but having been twice bitten, it would make one shy on a third occasion. There is no doubt we will have to submit a planning application and secure a satisfactory site. Any land purchase is always confidential until every element of it is complete. I can understand why the Senator is seeking a clear timetable for some of these issues, and I would be looking for those myself, but I am equally aware that with respect to many of the schools with which I deal, which have submitted planning applications and designs, that hitches arise which, with the best will in the world, are unavoidable in terms of the choice of the design team and additional ideas related to the scale that are put forward during the course of the process. All these aspects can delay a process.

I do not want to nail down a critical path as that would only lead to disappointing people. I can assure the Senator, from our point of view, that this is a high priority. We want to facilitate this successful school. We want to complete these processes as quickly as possible but we have to do them in a way that meets the requirements and expectations of pupils for the long term, and that is a very important consideration. I appreciate the points made by the Senator. In so far as I can, I will provide him with answers to the queries he raised, but some of them remain in a realm where definitive answers cannot be entirely laid out at this point.

Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy, sorry, Senator Richmond.

Neale Richmond (Fine Gael)
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I have been upgraded twice in one go this morning.

Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)
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It was a Freudian slip on both counts.

Neale Richmond (Fine Gael)
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No problem.

I thank the Minister for his very thorough response. I understand the many constraints in terms of his position. Some of the questions I posed were perhaps direct but they were deliberately so and that is a direct response to the deep levels of frustration among that school community. A Department official said to the principal that her role is to keep the school community positive but that is getting increasingly difficult. They mainly want to know if there is hope of the community having a permanent school. Will their most precious resources, their children, be looked after on the temporary site? Can the Minister indicate when the technical assessment, which might bring some clarity, will be completed?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I do not have a specific date in the briefing material. The decision will be made once the technical assessment is complete. I will get back to the Deputy or rather the Senator on that. I spend too much time in the other House.

Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is welcome here any time.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I will see if I can give some timescale for the completion of the technical assessment. Presumably that also depends on what sort of issues arise in the complexity of adapting the site. I am conscious that September 2017 is not that far away and that we need to move with due haste.