I have given permission to Deputy Harte to raise on the adjournment the amalgamation of Birdstown school and Bridgend school in County Donegal. The Deputy has eight minutes and the Minister four.
Adjournment Debate. - County Donegal Schools Amalgamation.
I raise this matter because of the problems existing in a housing estate in Donegal known as Burnfoot. The children from the families in that area originally went to Birdstown school, and that school was amalgamated with Bridgend National School a few years ago. A promise was given that school transport would be provided, and that promise has not been honoured. I have been trying to get information from the Department of Education as to how this problem can be resolved. On the order Paper for one day last week I had a question down to the Minister for Education for written reply asking for some information and I was told that the children were to be accommodated in Saint Muras school. However, there is no accommodation in Saint Muras school and we have about 40 children in the Burnfoot area at the moment who have been on strike since the beginning of the school term but because of the anxiety of the parents they have gone back to school now. It is costing the parents about 50p per week for each child to be brought to Bridgend school by private transport.
I have been told by the Ceann Comhairle that I cannot talk about school transport in this debate, but I understand that when schools are amalgamated one of the schools is closing down and amalgamated with an existing school at which accommodation will be provided. There was no accommodation provided in St. Muras school. The accommodation was provided at Bridgend school which is a new school and these children live three miles from it. It is an injustice and a discrimination against these children that the Department of Education will not provide school transport.
I gave the Deputy a fair opportunity to raise this matter. He knows that I ruled out of order a question on transport on a request by the Deputy to raise it on the adjournment. He should deal purely with the amalgamation of the schools.
I understand what the terms of allowing this question were. But nobody can tell me that the amalgamation of schools means just providing accommodation at another school without providing transport. I do not know of any other part of this State where this is happening. It is grossly unfair of the Chair to put such restrictions on me. The problem is not accommodation in St. Muras school, it is accommodation in Bridgend. There is no problem about accommodation in Bridgend. The problem is transport. How can I talk about amalgamation, of children in Birdstown school being accommodated in Bridgend school without bringing up the problem of transport? I have been trying, since the beginning of the summer, to get a decision from the Minister; I have been pushed from one civil servant to another; I have been trying to raise it in the House and I have been blocked in all directions, and now, because I talk about the basic problem in relation to the amalgamation of two schools, the Chair tells me that I can talk about amalgamation but not about transport, although the real problem is transport.
The situation was already explained to the Deputy.
The Chair is trying to muzzle me.
I certainly am not trying to muzzle the Deputy.
Why cannot the Department of Education honour the promise made when Bridgend school was amalgamated with Birdstown? I do not want to be heated about this but there are 40 children of poor families in a housing estate in Burnfoot who have been deprived of this basic right while children living between Burnfoot and the school they attend have been given tickets for free transport. I am not saying a word against the children that have been given the tickets. But I am appealing to the Minister to do something about these other children. There is nothing difficult about resolving this. It is simply a matter of someone taking the decision to provide a school bus to take 40 children to Bridgend school.
I do not like interrupting the Deputy but it has already been explained to him that legislation cannot be advocated on this, that it would require money——
I am not talking about legislation. Surely it does not take legislation to provide a school bus.
The Deputy is raising a matter which would require a Supplementary Estimate.
The idea of a Supplementary Estimate to put on a bus that is to travel three miles is ludicrous. How ridiculous can we become? It is ludicrous putting such restrictions on me. The reason I am raising this in the Dáil now is that I can have no other means of raising it or making my complaints known. I appeal to the Minister to do something. These are ordinary working class people. They cannot afford to pay more than is necessary for their children's education. They are entitled to accommodation. The Department of Education cannot accommodate them in St. Muras school which catchment area they are in. For the last four or five years they have been attending Bridgend school where there is plenty of accommodation and it is only half a mile or a little more in the opposite direction. The children have been going to Bridgend school since Birdstown school closed and there has never been any difficulty about it other than the transport problem and the Department promised that free transport would be provided some time. Up to now the people have been paying for that and the parish have been collecting the money to help to pay for it. Would somebody in the Department of Education listen to the voice of reason? Would somebody of some sympathy do something for these ordinary working class people, who are now being forced either to keep their children at home or pay for them to go to Bridgend or make them walk the very dangerous main road between the town of Buncrana and Derry? Those are the facts and I am asking the Chair to allow me make this appeal to the Minister. The accommodation provided——
I have already pointed out to the Deputy that he is out of order.
When Birdstown school was amalgamated with Bridgend school the Department undertook to provide accommodation and school transport for the children. That is what amalgamation is all about.
The Deputy can speak about the amalgamation aspect. That is what he asked to raise on the adjournment.
The parents of the children attending Birdstown school were given a solemn undertaking that if the school was allowed to close they would be accommodated at the new school at Bridgend. They were accommodated there. But they were never provided with transport and that was a dishonourable thing for the Department of Education. I appeal to the Minister to have some consideration for the parents of ordinary working class people.
The Deputy has one minute left. Would he try to keep in order during that minute?
They are not rich people. They are just ordinary people living in county council cottages. Will somebody provide enough money to pay for a bus that will take them to school every day of the week for the 30 or 40 weeks that they have to go to school?
I am a little mystified by Deputy Harte raising this matter because the amalgamation took place over five and a half years ago and was effected at the time when the then Minister for Education was a member of the Deputy's party. However, in deference to his wishes I shall give the history of the case.
On a point of order, the Minister knows that the late Deputy Cunningham taught in that school and it was his responsibility.
The Minister to continue without interruption. The Minister has only four minutes and he is entitled to the four minutes.
The background to this amalgamation goes back to the mid-sixties when efforts were being made to effect a rationalisation in the educational facilities in the Bridgend area of County Donegal. Following a report from an inspector of my Department in which it was recommended that a new national school should be built at Bridgend to replace the existing schools at Bridgend, Moness, Carrowen and Birdstown proposals to this effect were made in April 1966 to the then manager of the four schools. The manager replied to the effect that while he felt Birdstown should be left out of the scheme for the present the proposed arrangement for the amalgamation of the other three schools in a new school at Bridgend was acceptable. At that time there were 225 pupils and nine teachers in the four schools, with two teachers and about 45 of the pupils being in Birdstown school.
In July 1966 the manager was requested to secure a site in Bridgend for the proposed new school.
In July 1967 the manager, who by then had four possible sites in mind for the proposed school requested that they be inspected. One of the sites was accepted and the Manager was asked to furnish the necessary legal title. In January 1970, the Department fixed the level of grant which was adjusted to a higher figure following representations to the Department.
In 1971 the principal of the one-teacher, 25 pupil school at Carrowen died and it was agreed between the school management and the parents that the school should close and be amalgamated with the two-teacher school at Birdstown in which there was accommodation for the pupils. Free transport was provided for the parents of the closed school district to Birdstown school.
In March 1972 the manager furnished legal title to the proposed school site at Bridgend which was accepted as satisfactory. In April 1973, following the preparation of sketch plans and working drawings a tender was accepted and a contract placed for the building of the new school.
Since Carrowen school, which it had been agreed would amalgamate with the new school at Bridgend, had closed and amalgamated with Birdstown the question of the inclusion of Birdstown in the central school was raised with the Manager in April 1973. The manager replied in his letter of 25 April 1973 in the following terms:
I welcome the suggestion and would voice the approval of the parents on the proposition.
Arrangements were then made to provide an additional classroom in the central school.
In April 1975 the new school opened and the three existing schools, two of which were in very bad condition closed. At the time of amalgamation the combined enrolment of the three schools was 225 pupils and the seven teachers in the three schools were retained in the new school under a special arrangement applicable to the teachers employed in the schools at the time of amalgamation.
At present there are 308 pupils enrolled in the Bridgend central school and a principal and 8 assistant teachers employed there. The accommodation comprises 6 classrooms, a general purposes room and one prefabricated building. On the basis of forecasts of future enrolments it has been decided that an additional three permanent classrooms and a new enlarged general purposes room of 1,200 square feet should be provided. Sketch plans of the proposed scheme have been prepared and in addition to the accommodation which I have already mentioned it is planned to adapt the existing general purposes room to provide a principal's room, a remedial teaching room and a library.
When these works are completed the school will provide first-class facilities for the present and future needs of the area.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 27 November 1980.