Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 13 Nov 1991

Vol. 412 No. 6

Adjournment Debate. - Education Matters.

Mr. D'Arcy

It is proposed to amalgamate the three secondary schools in Gorey, Loreto Abbey, the CBS and the vocational school. These schools need extensions or new buildings. They accommodate approximately 1,000 pupils and service Gorey town and the surrounding district.

After persistent pressure on the Department of Education, agreement was reached in 1985 to build a co-educational school and to locate the vocational education committee on the same campus. It was proposed that some of the facilities would be shared by the vocational education committee and the amalgamated secondary schools. A site was secured and plans drawn up. The three schools in question spent a considerable amount of time preparing for rationalisation and a climate of co-operation existed in expectation of progress. However, delay after delay stifled this co-operation with the result that dispondency set in.

In November 1989 the Minister informed a deputation that there could only be one school under unified management. She also stated that once agreement was reached building on the school would start immediately and that finance was available. Agreement was reached after several meetings which involved much compromise by the three schools who were assured that the building would commence in 1990. The Minister announced at the annual general meeting of the AMCSS on 9 May 1991 that building work would commence and £4 million would be allocated. Of course, this announcement was warmly greeted by the people of Gorey and the surrounding district. Unfortunately, nothing happened since then and people have become very aggravated.

These three schools have approximately 40 pre-fab buildings between them which cater for approximately 40 classes per day. Pre-fabs are estimated to have a life span of approximately ten years. These pre-fabs are 18 or 19 years old and are extremely difficult to maintain. Last year the Christian Brothers spent in the region of £6,000 on their pre-fabs. These pre-fabs have leaking roofs, rotten windows, rotten frames and the toilet facilities are an absolute disgrace.

At a parent-teacher meeting which I recently attended as a parent a request was made for a fire officer's report and a health officer's report to be compiled immediately. I have no doubt that these reports which will be presented to the Minister will not be favourable. Even if work on the school was to commence tomorrow it would take approximately two-and-a-half years to complete. Meanwhile the pupils and staff have to put up with these atrocious conditions. When will the Minister sign the document in respect of this school? We know that everything else has been cleared.

Mr. Yates

These schools are located at Deputy D'Arcy's home town of Gorey. I see Deputy Browne in the House and I am sure he will support our request. It was the Minister who decided to amalgamate these three post-primary schools, the vocational school, Loreto Convent and the CBS. All of these schools had plans for the replacements of the pre-fabs which they have to use. The Minister visited these schools, met deputations, made commitments and invited tenders some months ago. Now we are told that the design team and so on are holding up the work.

We are asking the Minister to honour her commitment that the appointed tender will be sanctioned in December and that the money will be provided in the 1992 Estimates. That was a very specific, fair, open and honest commitment. These schools cater for over 1,000 students and this is one of the biggest requirements in the county in terms of education. I ask the Minister to honour her commitment and give the contractor, who I understand is from Athlone in her constituency, the go ahead to carry out this work.

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Mr. F. Fahey)

I welcome the opportunity to reply to the issues raised by the Deputies. I am sure Members will agree that the Minister made the right decision in the case of Gorey — it would have been ridiculous to proceed with the construction of two or three new schools in a town where there are only 1,000 pupils.

Mr. Yates

That is agreed.

Mr. F. Fahey

We all accept that there have been delays in regard to this project, despite the best efforts of Deputy Browne, in particular, to ensure that this project goes ahead as quickly as possible.

Mr. Connaughton

A man who never misses a chance.

Mr. F. Fahey

This is the most expensive post-primary school building project in the history of the State. Over the past four years we have tried to deal with the unbelieveable number of absolute hovels being used by post-primary schools throughout the country. I do not wish to make any political point because we want to get on with this project as quickly as possible. While I agree with what the Deputies have said, but, as they are aware this project has been delayed only because of the long list of school projects we inherited from the previous Goverment and which need urgent attention.

Mr. Yates

Give us the bottom line.

Mr. F. Fahey

I want to assure the House that the new school is at an advanced stage of planning. The Department are awaiting the final tender report on the project which is being prepared by the design team.

Mr. Yates

Will the Minister give us a commitment?

Mr. F. Fahey

Pending receipt of the final report of the design team I am not in a position to say when the contract will be placed or when work will commence on the construction of the school. I wish to assure the Deputies that as a result of the intensive efforts of Deputy Browne this school project is regarded as a priority by the Minister and me and will be proceeded with as quickly as possible.

Mr. D'Arcy

What does that mean?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order, please. We will now hear a two minute statement from Deputy Connaughton.

Mr. Connaughton

It is with regret I bring this matter to the attention of the Minister once again. The file on the proposed building for the new special school for the mentally handicapped at Snipe Avenue in Galway must be enormous at this stage.

Mr. F. Fahey

It had not been opened when the Deputy was in office.

Mr. Connaughton

I ask the Minister of State to take his time. I will have some news for him in a moment. The parents of these children are dumbfounded and bewildered by you——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should address the Deputy as Minister of State and give him his full title.

Mr. Connaughton

——the Minister of State at the Department of Education, Deputy Fahey. This much needed facility has been flung around like snuff at a wake. Contract documents were supposed to be signed and the contractor was supposed to start in September of this year. Despite the best efforts of the management of the Galway Association for the Mentally Handicapped, the teachers and the parents of the children, to try to get some information from the Department of Education about the reasons for the delay there appears to be a stone wall of silence. Will the money be provided or was it provided in the 1991 Estimates as promised? Will finance be available in 1992 for the project and will it start before the end of this year? Surely, this project, given the circumstances of this case, must proceed forthwith. I ask the Minister of State, on behalf of the many hundreds of people who are writing to him, when will the project start?

Mr. F. Fahey

This project would have started many years ago were it not for the absolute and total neglect of it by Fine Gael and Labour when they were in Government. In fact, it is one of the great disgraces of their four year period in Government that they never put a biro on a map or a pen or a pencil on a plan——

Mr. Connaughton

The Minister of State promised it for the last two years and he did nothing.

Mr. F. Fahey

——from 1982 to 1987.

Mr. Connaughton

The Minister of State is the man in charge.

Mr. F. Fahey

The Deputy is being hypocritical. He was in Government for almost five years and did not open a file on a primary school for children with a handicap——

Mr. Connaughton

Build it.

Mr. F. Fahey

——who were all located in prefabricated buildings.

Mr. Connaughton

The Minister of State was strewing them around for the last two years and he should be ashamed of himself.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Connaughton, please desist from interrupting.

Mr. F. Fahey

That is the history of this school. After the first occasion on which I met the parents at their request in December 1988 — the first time the board of management came to meet me on a deputation — I immediately undertook to examine the condition of the school. I visited the school and I took the Minister to see the school in March 1989. In a little over two years we have had to try to find a new site because the site which was being talked about was on the other side of the city. We have taken the various planning stages as quickly as any primary school project has ever been taken.

Mr. Connaughton

Did not the Minister try to unsettle the Holy Family School?

Mr. F. Fahey

The Deputy should listen to a few facts. What did the Deputy do when he was in Government?

Mr. Connaughton

What is the Minister of State doing?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister of State has two minutes to reply. I will have to ask Deputy Connaughton to leave the House if he persists in interrupting.

Mr. F. Fahey

It is an absolute disgrace that the Deputy allowed it to reach the point he did. I want to outline for the Deputy the extensive progress made in the last two years. In August 1990, or thereabouts, we completed the planning and asked the school authorities to apply for planning permission. On 12 September we received tenders in the Department to proceed with the project. Those tenders are under examination and it is expected that the examination will be completed at the end of this month. Pending the availability of money in the 1992 Estimates the facility will then be ready to go to contract. I wish to put it to Deputy Connaughton that the reason for the delay in this school has nothing to do with me or my Department; it has to do with the fact that up until December 1988 absolutely nothing — not even a pen had been put to paper — was done to get this school started. This school for special children with a handicap was located in prefabricated accommodation for 27 years.

Mr. Connaughton

That is not what the Minister of State told them three years ago.

Mr. F. Fahey

The Deputy should not try to make a political football out of these children. That is what the Deputy is attempting to do but I can assure him he will not do so. He should face up to the facts. The facts are very simple.

Mr. Connaughton

The finance.

Mr. F. Fahey

The Deputy did not even put pen to paper about this school in the five years he was in Government.

Mr. Connaughton

The Minister should not be walking on the handicapped.

An Ceann Comhairle

We will now hear a two minute statement from Deputy J. Higgins.

Mr. J. Higgins

The Corley, Freeman, Duffy, Leonard and O'Brien families from the Kilkelly area of County Mayo have children attending Ballyhaunis Community School. Until this summer the standard of transport was adequate to say the least. However, as and from September there was a rearrangement of transport. The situation, for example, of the O'Brien family from Cloughvalley is that they leave home at 7.30 a.m. each day and at this time of the year it is dark. They are collected at 7.50 a.m. and arrive at Ballyhaunis Community School at 8.10 a.m. The school does not open until 9.05 a.m. Therefore, they have to wait for 55 minutes each morning. They are collected at the school at 4.50 p.m. are dropped off at 5.10 p.m. and finally walk to the house at 5.30 p.m. That is a total of ten hours, the longest working day in the country. It is dark when they leave in the morning and dark when they return home.

The problem is not one of cutbacks but rather that the mini-bus in question collects those children and, having deposited them in the morning, then collects a second group of mentally handicapped children for St. Anthony's School in Castlebar. I do not think this is an adequate standard of transport, it is appalling. There are mini-buses in the area which would be more competitive than that doing the run at present. I am asking that the collection be rearranged because what is involved is a question of mismanagement or bad management.

Mr. F. Fahey

I would like to thank Deputy Higgins for his contribution. Up to the end of the 1990-91 school year those pupils were collected in the morning at 7.55 a.m. and arrived in Ballyhaunis at 8.30 a.m. School commences at 9 a.m. in Ballyhaunis. In the evening the service departed Ballyhaunis at 4.20 p.m. and pupils were set-down at approximately 4.35 p.m. or 4.40 p.m. The revised operating timetable for the pupils affected and who are now travelling on the mini-bus is as follows: morning pick up at 7.50 a.m. and they arrive, in Ballyhaunis at 8.10 a.m. In the evenings the mini-bus departs Ballyhaunis at approximately 4.40 p.m. or 4.45 p.m. and sets-down the pupils at approximately 4.55 p.m. It is a feature of the scheme that many children arrive early before school commences and provision is normally made by school authorities to accommodate those pupils and allow them to study.

I am satisfied that the service provided, while not as good as that which operated at the end of the 1990-91 school year, is well within the time limits for travelling and waiting times set down by my Department.

I would like to add that I have no proposals to alter the existing arrangements which are in place. I would like to remind Deputy Higgins that the times which I have set out are normal times which have been in operation since school transport was begun 16, or so, years ago. We all accept, as I pointed out in the recent debate in the Dáil, that we would prefer to pick up children at a later hour in the morning and leave them home at an earlier hour in the evening but the reality is that since the transport system was begun children, in some cases, have to be picked up earlier than would be normal and left home later than we would wish. That has been normal provision in this scheme since its commencement. The times are no different from that which pertains throughout the country.

An Ceann Comhairle

The House will now hear a two minute statement from Deputy Hogan.

Mr. Hogan

I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister of State, Deputy F. Fahey, the problem of building a new vocational school at Mooncoin, County Kilkenny. This school has been the subject of debate for a considerable number of years. As my colleague Deputy Connaughton stated, it has been announced on so many occasions now that I find it difficult to keep track. Promises have been made by Government representatives, including my colleague, Deputy Aylward, in The Munster Express in December 1990 when he stated that he has received the good news from the Minister for Education that work would commence in 1991 to provide a new vocational school at Mooncoin. Those buildings and prefabricated buildings are still there to be seen. They are atrocious. The board of management, the staff, parents and pupils are to be complimented for meeting the requirements of the second level curriculum in view of those conditions. I regret that the teaching staff and parents, because of the situation is so serious and because they have received so many undertakings and false promises, have had to take the unprecedented action of going into industrial dispute. This is a very difficult decision for teachers and parents but they had to go through with this in recent days because of the lack of action by the Minister for Education to meet obligations and promises made over the years. I hope the Minister of State will be able to allay the fears of the community in Mooncoin by announcing tonight a start-up date for this project.

Mr. F. Fahey

I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify the position regarding the provision of a new vocational school at Mooncoin, County Kilkenny. As the Deputy stated, this has been the subject of debates between both of us on a number of occasions. The most recent development is that Kilkenny Vocational Education Committee were requested to submit revised plans with an appropriate cost reduction. In December 1990 the vocational education committee were authorised to invite tenders for the project. In March 1991 an incomplete preliminary tender report was received in the Department from Kilkenny Vocational Education Committee. Following correspondence on the matter a revised preliminary tender report as submitted in May 1991 and this report was the subject of ongoing correspondence with the vocational education committee until recently. Kilkenny Vocational Education Committee were authorised on 25 October 1991 to request their design team to prepare a final report which is now awaited from the vocational education committee.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 14 November 1991.