Seanad Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 13 Jul 1993

Vol. 137 No. 8

Adjournment Matters. - Mayo Abbey National School.

Mr. Burke

I welcome the Minister to the House and wish her success in her portfolio as Minister for Education which is not at any time an easy office. I have had a number of motions put down in this House and they all appear to relate to education. The Minister is, I believe, well aware of some of the educational problems in County Mayo and I do not believe there is any need for me to elaborate on these at present. However, I am immediately concerned with the toilet facilities at Mayo Abbey national school at Claremorris, County Mayo. It saddens me to have to raise as an issue in this House in 1993 a national school which is over 100 years old and with over 80 students where, in order to go to the toilets, those students have to go over 100 yards from the entrance of the school. Mayo Abbey was once one of the foremost educational parts of Europe in the times of the monasteries and monks. I can only say the toilets in Mayo Abbey national school nearly date back to those ages.

The school is a national school with three classrooms and there are no facilities for the teachers. They have to eat their lunches in the classroom and in this day and age that is not acceptable. It is a vibrant community with many new facilities, including new football fields and a new church and they desperately need to have something done about toilet facilities in the school. I would like the Minister to come to the school when she next visits Mayo. Then perhaps the necessary work will be carried out.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Thank you, Senator. I can assure you there are some schools in Roscommon with the same problems.

Minister for Education (Ms Bhreathnach)

I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to outline exactly how we are going to respond to this problem. We are talking about the teachers and parents of pupils in Mayo Abbey. It is a three-teacher school with 71 enrolments. I absolutely accept that the toilet facilities in this case and, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, in many other schools including your own local schools, are less than ideal and that they are causing hardship to the children.

When we wish to raise the accommodation standards of schools, the resources available are never quite sufficient to meet the needs. The Department has to ensure that the moneys voted through the Dáil for primary education accommodation purposes are spent expeditiously and to the best possible advantage. The Senator is probably aware that there has been some delay in this case because the Department was endeavouring to amalgamate another school with Mayo Abbey and there was a local reluctance to pursue this matter which arose before my time in the Department.

The Green Paper on Education which was published this time last year outlined the ideal of a four-teacher school. The Department officials were considering the future of this school and whether the money should be spent on what was deemed in the Green Paper to be an ideal situation. As the Senator is aware, Mayo Abbey did not feel that it slotted into that. The position taken in the Green Paper was one which governed the Department when they were looking at the application from Mayo Abbey. The options and alternatives are under consideration and I am assured by my officials that they are nearing completion. We expect to convey a decision to the chairman of the board of management by the end of July so that adequate facilities will be provided for the school in line with modern standards and requirements.

I hope I will be in a position as Minister to ensure that it will not be necessary to have this debate again because we all agree there are basic facilities which are required. I believe the Senator; a visit from the Minister might short circuit that in this particular case. There are over 100 schools where the provision of sanitary facilities could be considered to be inadequate and I think that before we begin designing greater and more expensive facilities, that is a basic facility which we should put in place. I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to outline that.

Mr. Burke

I thank the Minister; we will look forward to the end of July. In the event of an amalgamation the existing inadequate toilet facilities in Mayo Abbey could not be expected to cope.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Thank you, Senator and I thank the Minister. I join with the other Members of the House in thanking the staff for their courtesy and co-operation in the past session and I wish both them and the Members of the House an enjoyable break.

The Seanad adjourned at 9.40 p.m. sine die.