Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I welcome the Minister of State. I spoke to the Minister for Education and Youth yesterday outside the Seanad and she indicated that she hoped to be here for this Commencement matter but, clearly, she is unable to attend. I am sorry about that but I thank and welcome the Minister of State for agreeing to step in. I acknowledge that it is not his Department but I will set out the case as I understand it to be.

I was contacted by the independent councillor Michael Fleming from Stepaside in Dublin who asked me to meet the parents of Mountainside Montessori in Stepaside, County Dublin. I also met the management of the Montessori. Mountainside Montessori at Holy Trinity National School is an inclusive preschool provider. It is fully committed to offering equal access to all children and families and is inclusive of gender, civil status, religion, age, race, disability, family and membership of the Traveller community. It offers an open-door policy at all times throughout the school year and encourages close collaboration and partnership with the parents and guardians of the children. Mountainside operates the ECCE scheme, which offers up to two years for preschool education three hours per day to children under the age of two years and eight months. It opens from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday to Friday. Most of the children there follow on to Holy Trinity National School, which is on the same site, and the Montessori follows that school's calendar.

The community section of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is fully aware of the issues. They have been raised with the county childcare committee, which has engaged with Mountainside looking at various options, but nothing has been delivered. Effectively, having received notice from Holy Trinity National School in 2024 that its space would now be utilised and would no longer be available to the preschool, the preschool has not been successful in securing an alternative. Families affected by the cessation of Mountainside Montessori are very anxious about where their children will go in September. This is a reasonable, accessible and inclusive Montessori service in Stepaside, an area that is growing significantly. Working parents are now thinking about possibly having to pull out of work. They do not know where their children will be going on 1 September, which is a disappointment.

It has been brought to my attention that there are a number of prefabs vacant at Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School, which is very close to Holy Trinity and would be perfect for Montessori use under an agreed licence and subject to any terms and conditions required by Tusla. It is approved by Tusla and is compliant with all the regulations, so that is not an issue.

Clearly, this is about resources. I am talking about an interim measure for the next year. We, or the Government and TDs in that constituency, will have a problem on their hands on 1 September. I have seen correspondence from the Department of Education and Youth, which I had hoped to put to the Minister today, but she is not here.This is from the principal. The correspondence states:

I wish to advise that the Department of Education has instructed us that any existing rental agreement should not be renewed, and no other rental agreement should be entered into for the interim accommodation on the Stepaside ETSS school site [That is the Educate Together site]. The Department is currently reviewing accommodation requirements for the Stepaside ETSS to establish which units will be retained [these are the prefabricated units] and what will need to be removed to facilitate the construction of phase 2 of the school-building project.

In essence, those involved - all of the children and all of the parents - are anxious and need an interim facility. All that is being sought is the use of empty prefabs on a school site for less than 12 months, from September this year to next June. I hope the Department will commit to that. It needs to do something. We will of course hear pronouncements and condemnations by TDs across all parties and none in the next few weeks, but we now have time on our side to do something.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Boyhan for raising this issue. The way he describes Mountainside Montessori school sounds incredible. It sounds inclusive and open and is exactly the type of model we should have for our Montessori schools. There is clearly an urgency because September is looming and there needs to be a solution in place. I am not sure if my answer will provide much satisfaction in terms of the use of the prefabs, but I will bring it back to the Minister to try to find some solution.

This matter allows me an opportunity to provide an update to the House on the current position with regard to the school building project for Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School. The school building project for Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School will deliver a new 1,000 pupil post-primary school and accommodation, including six classrooms for children with special educational needs. The project is being delivered in two phases. Phase 1 of the project, delivered under the Department’s design and build programme, was completed in April 2024. The phase 1 project delivered accommodation for approximately 680 pupils and accommodation, including four classrooms for children with special educational needs and a PE hall. The phase 2 project is being delivered under the Department's employer-led design programme, which uses a professional external project manager to co-ordinate and drive the design team to achieve the best possible timeframe for the project through the stages of architectural planning to tender and construction. Phase 2 will deliver the balance of the accommodation for approximately 320 pupils and accommodation, including two classrooms for children with special educational needs plus external classes. The phase 2 project for Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School is currently at tender stage with tenders returned on 2 May 2025. Tenders are currently being evaluated by the project manager and design team and a tender assessment report will be prepared for the Department's consideration. Projects are subject to relevant due diligence at each stage of the process, within the context of overall programme and budgetary parameters.

Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School is currently accommodated in its new phase 1 school building as well as in interim accommodation located on the permanent school site in Leopardstown. A review of the accommodation on site was undertaken by the design team to determine how the school’s accommodation needs will be managed up to and during construction of the phase 2 project. The modular units installed on site between 2020 and 2022 were to accommodate the school pending delivery of its new permanent school building. Now that the accommodation review is complete, some of the rental accommodation has been scheduled for removal in the coming weeks, with the remainder of the rental accommodation retained on site for use by the school pending delivery of the phase 2 project. The contract for the rental of the modular accommodation is between the Department and the contractor and there are no plans to enter into any third-party arrangements with regard to that contract.

The programme for Government commits to expanding the provision of after-school and childcare in school buildings and campuses, in tandem with the school building programme, to provide better access for parents and communities. The Department supports and encourages the use of school buildings for community and recreational purposes where this is feasible, including the provision of early learning and childcare services. The procedures are available for each school to refer to for guidance. Given the complexities of delivering the phase 2 school building project with a live school on site, it is unlikely that a move by Mountainside Montessori to the Stepaside Educate Together Secondary School site could be facilitated, and Mountainside Montessori should consider all options available to it.

That is absolutely not the answer the Senator was looking for. I get the complexities that exist where there is a live school on site and the use of those modular buildings there at the moment. On the other hand, the suggestion makes sense for many reasons, as these modular rooms are on site and phase 2 of the Educate Together school is going ahead. I will go back to the Minister to see if there is any innovative way in which the Montessori school can be accommodated. It is probably not good enough to go back to say it has to discuss options. We have to collaborate on this to ensure those parents who are sending children to the Montessori school have a solution before September.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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As the Minister of State was reading, I was going through his reply line by line, and with the last line I wondered if we were talking about the same place at all. The last line states that "Mountainside Montessori should consider all other options available to it". It is not very encouraging for a Government policy that is encouraging them. However, what this does, and this is what I always say about these things, is that it puts it on the record, so there is no talking out of both sides of people's mouths in the constituency about what is actually happening. I will circulate this to the media today and to all politicians and councillors in that constituency and let them advocate for the people. I do not even live in this constituency, but it is important. One of the great benefits of a Commencement matter is that you now have it on the record.

This is not an encouraging day from the Government to the community of Stepaside and this Montessori school, but I welcome and thank the Minister of State for at least agreeing to take this back. We have county childcare committees, of course, but, come hell or high water, these people want a place for their children. There are parents listening in this morning who will be contacting their employers to say they may be taking career breaks because they cannot put their two- and three-year-olds into support. That is a pity because there has been a positive partnership between the existing primary school on site and this. I want to make it clear here, on the record, that we do not want to stop phase 2. It will be interesting to see when phase 2 is actually starting. Is this another one of these phases that will be sitting there for another 12 months? However, I appreciate that the Minister of State will take this back to the Department. I will continue to talk to the public representatives this afternoon, and I will certainly be asking them, because there is time on their side, to politically mobilise and get commitments.

Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)
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I again thank the Senator. I know he does not live in the constituency, but to be fair, he always represents his councillors and representatives in that area. He is doing so again today. My priority and concern are with the parents and the children who are all set up to avail of the Montessori school service in September. They must be anxious not knowing where they are going to be homed in future. In that spirit, I will certainly go back to talk to the Department and the Minister to see if there can at least be some co-operative effort between the Department, the school and all other stakeholders to try to find a solution. Whether that is the modular builds on site at the moment or some alternative, I will do that.