Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 10 May 1983

Vol. 342 No. 4

Adjournment Debate. - Finglas (Dublin) School.

Miss Flaherty

I should like to thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, and the Minister for allowing this matter to be raised. I have agreed to allow Deputy Tunney five minutes of the 20 minutes available to me.

The urgency of this debate comes about because of a decision communicated to the school last month by the Department of Education that a longpromised extension to cater for up to 600 was not going ahead and that the school was now to be confined to a numerical strength of 350, that despite the fact that the school currently holds and caters for 435. The decision was one which greatly disappointed the board members of which I happen to be chairperson who have been waiting anxiously for this extension to go ahead as promised five years ago and as intended when the school was established in 1967.

In 1967 the school was opened in a temporary prefabricated building catering for 240 pupils with the intention that this would be followed by a double phase development which would gradually upgrade to 600, with a potential for future development to 800. Throughout the years of the seventies additional classrooms were provided in the form of prefabricated island units of varying qualities intended to tide the school over until the new building would be built and the promised replacement extension building would materialise. The kind of accommodation that has now accumulated is essentially temporary and of very poor quality. Fifteen classrooms of that nature were added on between 1967 and 1981.

The planning for the school proper began in the middle seventies and in 1977 the commitment was made: the advisory council for the Dublin area agreed that permanent accommodation for 600 pupils should be provided with a provision for an extension for 800 in the future if needed. This was agreed back in 1977 but for some reason the implementation of this decision was delayed beyond the normal two to three-year time span and we reached 1973 without any sign of a building, this despite the fact that in 1978 a letter from the Department of Education made a formal commitment. I am sure Deputy Tunney will be referring to the fact that he, in his time in the Ministry, renewed that commitment in 1981.

The situation is such that the school operates on a temporary planning permission and that planning permission runs out in 1985. The school has to go back to the corporation every so many years for an extension of that planning permission.

This is all leading to the very surprising letter the school got in April of this year indicating that the Department were now prepared to approve the upgrading of the existing permanent accommodation, permanent accommodation which does not exist in any of the buildings of Scoil Íde, and that they would be upgraded to a satisfactory level. The only way this can be done, the school argues, is by replacement of the building particularly with regard to specialist facilities. The number of pupils being talked about is 350 when at present the school caters for 435 in a slightly expanded building which was originally intended for 240.

There are two elements in this which are very disappointing and a major blow to the hopes of the school for development. One is the size allocation. I accept that the Department has a certain problem there. We accept the statistics for the area which indicate that there is a significant fall in primary school numbers which will eventually flow through to the second level area. Quite apart from any further expansion the current development would indicate that the numbers there at present are going to be maintained because the school provides certain unique services in the area in terms of the kind of courses it offers which are not repeated by any of the other schools in the area and which are attracting students from a very wide catchment area.

The other great disappointment was the description suddenly of buildings which had been built as temporary units as permanent. We are very concerned to straighten both of these problems out with the Department as a matter of urgency. The school is catering for 435 girls. It operates as a twin school with Coláiste Eoin, which is a boys' vocational school with 700 pupils in a very fine permanent premises within about 100 yards. At senior level boys and girls combine their classes, so the girls are occasionally able to see the luxury in which the boys are educated. Within that environment the teachers and pupils of Scoil Íde have developed a full range of successful courses from junior level right through to secretarial courses and work experience courses. They have initiated a number of new ventures in links with AnCO. The first pharmacy aid course has been developed and run successfully in the school with AnCO's support. An exceptional relationship with the businesses in the area has been developed. Students benefit from that unique relationship and are often at a very high level of placement. Finglas is a highly industrialised area, so the kind of business courses that are being run by a school like this are something that deserve maximum support and encouragement rather than the treatment they are currently receiving.

The school has achieved outstanding success in inter-school debating competitions. There is a tremendous outward bound programme common to the VEC schools in Dublin. The career-orientated courses are fairly exceptional. Because they were waiting for the permanent building the staff have operated very peaceably and calmly in inadequate accommodation. I do not think this will continue unless the Department can assure the school that the accommodation will now be upgraded immediately even if it must be at a reduced size and that there will not be the kind of delay that we have had, from 1977 to 1983, with nothing but a lot of money being spent on plans. The Department of Education may be well known for its delays but a delay of that length is unpardonable and it is something that we will not tolerate again.

The particular problem with the school is the complete lack of facilities. The school is totally inadequate because it was never planned on a permanent basis. The lay-out is temporary. The school needs a complete upgrading. There are no facilities for interviews. The toilet facilities are wholly inadequate. There is inadequate storage space. There are no proper boundaries and the grounds provide a right-of-way for wandering horses. They have never been adequately secured because the idea was that building would go ahead. The heating is utterly inadequate and the unfortunate students spend the winter with their coats on in the classrooms. Lighting facilities are either non-existent or inadequate. There is need for some form of exercise facilities for the 430 girls ranging in age from 14 to 19 in the senior school. It is totally unsatisfactory that both they and the staff should be without any sort of facilities. The hotchpotch arrangement of prefabs means that students and staff are running in and out from one prefab to another in all sorts of inclement weather. The temporary nature of the buildings is one of our biggest headaches. None of the arrangements there could be described as permanent.

Our main request to the Department is that it should accept and acknowledge the magnificent work done in this school. The service offered is unique. The courses do not compete with the secondary schools and so there is no way the Department should feel they are wasting or misdirecting resources. The schools are unique in that they are complementary, so complementary that after the senior cycle secretarial level they draw recruits from the secondary schools with which they might seem to be in competition at an earlier stage. They have an exceptional staff who have developed very forward thinking and imaginative courses suited to the needs of the students.

Talking about the area briefly, it has got some publicity in the past for many of the wrong reasons. I do not want to dwell on that because this school is an outstanding example of the creative work that is going ahead there. The adverse publicity is particularly sad in the context of the pressures on an area like Finglas, because this kind of work is being hindered rather than supported by the Department, by Government Departments generally, which should be helping rather than hindering the good work being done. It should be a priority development area.

The students are given an opportunity of travelling abroad. In many of the domestic situations in which they live this kind of experience would not be easily available to them. Yet a large number of the students take part in a variety of mixed cost outings with the support of parents and voluntary fund raising in the area. This provides them with an opportunity of travelling abroad. These fund raising activities are supported by the business community in the area. This kind of exceptional activity is a feature of the school and it is one of the reasons we wish to see the Department now honour to the full the commitment given in this letter of April last where the Department commit themselves to upgrading the school to an adequate level, supplying all specialist facilities. We want a commitment from the Minister now that this will happen in the very near future. Would the Minister be so good within the next month to meet a deputation from the area to consider developments? The main demand is that there should be no delay in an adequate level of staffing, in the provision of basic facilities and ancillary facilities, basic minimum facilities for adequate schooling at second level in the Ireland of the eighties.

Mr. Tunney

First of all, I want to thank Deputy Flaherty for allowing me the next five minutes in an endeavour to confirm and endorse the case she has made in respect of this great school. My concern arises from the fact that in this school there are roughly 430 girls, all intelligent, all charged with the same ambition and resolve in the matter of education, all with the same entitlements in regard to what the State is obliged to do for them from the point of view of education. That is not being done. That, I suggest, is a very serious charge to make against the Department. Not alone is it a serious charge but it is a very important omission on the part of the Department and it is not that the Department do not know what the situation is.

Deputy Flaherty referred to the history of the school and to the fact that I had some involvement. At the time when I was a junior Minister I went out to the school to present certificates and I had confirmation at the time given to me that it was in order for me to announce publicly that the new school was being proceeded with, and the records of the Department will show that. I did not do that lightly because I knew that, apart from other considerations, I would have to meet the students, the staff and the parents so long as I lived in the area or close to it. To think now that the Department are waiting for reminders and that the people, the public representatives and the staff and I have to assert the rights of the students is something which does not do justice to any of us or to the Department.

Those girls must, and here we look upon education unfortunately as it is today, compete with their peers. We only have to look around the city and the country to see the facilities enjoyed by other girls as of entitlement. One has to have some regard for the indelicacy of the situation when making the case. There are over 400 girls in the school and they have not even the normal basic minimum requirements to which they are entitled. We talk about trying to inculcate in them certain standards and certain values. It amazes me that despite the adversity, the students with the co-operation of their parents and the magnificent guidance given by the principal and his staff have been able to achieve what has been achieved.

I heard the Minister for Education today speaking on some programme about her great interest in her own sex. It was agreed the day had come when girls were allowed to do what — and this was regarded as a great landmark in the advances in education — hitherto they had been prevented from doing. She said how concerned she was about education. I suggest she should take a trip out to Scoil Íde and then move into the adjoining boys' school and see if she is happy with the respective standards that exist. I am quite sure she would not be happy. I am quite sure too she will not accept the invitation I extend because her visit will not be one about which she can boast.

I know the Minister of State and the Minister are not on the scene all that long and what I say to them is not directed personally at them. They are the inheritors of a system that has been operating and I am very mindful of the lack of power I possibly had in that Department since I was not able during my term there to guarantee that the work would be proceeded with, but I did at least, or so I thought, bring it to the stage where the Department could not move back but would have to go forward.

With the assistance of the statisticians in the Department the Minister will be in a position to tell me that in a certain number of years what I am asking for will not be justified in terms of the number of students who will be attending the school; but I am putting the case on behalf of the students who are there this year, as well as on behalf of the 400 or so who will come next year and the year after. I am not concerned with projections now of what might be the position in the year 2000. Such projections do not justify an injustice to the students and the staff in question. I marvel at the staff remaining there, but if they are asked to continue to carry this burden they may be enticed away from Finglas and that would only compound the difficulties that are there now.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy's time has expired.

Mr. Tunney

I am sure the Minister of State will not complain if I trespass for a moment on his time.

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Mr. Creed)

If the Deputy wishes me to reply in full he should allow me my time.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair must tell Deputy Tunney that his time is up.

Mr. Tunney

I am disappointed that I do not have the opportunity in the course of this brief contribution to convince the Minister that history is no longer relevant in this situation. The fact is that there are 400 girls in a school in Finglas who are not getting justice from the Department or from us.

Mr. Creed

I have followed the contributions of Deputy Flaherty and Deputy Tunney with interest. I am aware of the inadequacy of the accommodation at Scoil Íde but I cannot give any explanation to Deputy Tunney as to why a commitment he gave to teachers and pupils was not honoured, not being aware of that commitment and not having any information with me that would enable me to give him an explanation. However, I find it surprising that, if that commitment were given some time ago, Deputy Tunney did not follow it up and that he did not get an explanation for it from his source of information.

Mr. Tunney

I did give the commitment.

Mr. Creed

If the Deputy wishes me to reply he should allow me the opportunity of doing so.

An Ceann Comhairle

We must have order. The Minister without interruption.

Mr. Tunney

On a point of order, I hope that when the Minister discovers that what I said was true——

An Ceann Comhairle

As the Deputy knows well that is not a point of order.

Mr. Creed

I am not questioning the validity of the statement. All I am saying is that I do not have in my possession any information that would enable me to give the Deputy an explanation as to why the commitment he gave was not honoured.

Mr. Tunney

Perhaps the Minister would send it to me when he finds it.

Mr. Creed

We will not disagree about that. The Deputy referred to the availability of statistics in the Department but I am sure Deputies generally will accept that one of the prime considerations in the provision of any kind of educational accommodation, whether it be an extension or whether new buildings be involved, is to determine in advance of any State resources being invested the future needs of the area concerned. Consequently, it is of prime importance that statistical information be available to the Minister of the day. In this way accommodation is provided on the basis of projections that can be made. It is very important to have such information in terms of the initial cost and also of the running cost of the school in question.

I understand the frustration of the Deputies concerned with the long delay but, having been on the scene only for the past four or five months, it is necessary for me to indicate the attitude of my Department and the contribution they have made as well as the investigations that have been carried out and the difficulties that have arisen.

It was considered some years ago, on the basis of the then pattern of enrolment in the area, that accommodation would be required in the school for 600 pupils with provision for expansion, should that be found necessary. Architectural planning for the project was begun and had reached the stage where working drawings had been prepared.

However, at that stage it became clear that enrolment in post-primary schools in the Finglas area in general had peaked and all the up-to-date statistical information led to the conclusion that enrolments would continue to fall. Let me give the House some figures of enrolment at that school. In 1977-78 the number of new entrants was 170. Six years later, in 1982-83, the number of new entrants had fallen to 90. By 1990-91 it is projected on the basis of enrolments in primary schools that the annual intake will have fallen to a figure of the order of 60. The Finglas area is not unique in this phenomenon. It epitomises a problem which has occurred and is occurring elsewhere in the Greater Dublin area. It raises the question of what should be done in the context of scarce resources. I am sure that Deputy Flaherty and Deputy Tunney do not suggest that, irrespective of enrolment trends, once a decision has been made to provide a certain level of accommodation this decision should be adhered to for all time. Such a course, leading to a waste of public money, could not be condoned at any time but particularly now in the present financial difficulties.

Before I proceed to the positive side of my reply, I want to give a further statistic for the overall Finglas area. On the basis of my Department's projections, which essentially are based on the enrolment in national schools in the area, it is estimated that enrolments at post-primary schools in the greater Finglas area will, by 1989-90, have fallen by some 1,000 pupils. Surely at a difficult time like the present, the Deputies will agree that it would be a criminal waste of resources to expand the school accommodation in the area.

I said I wanted to come to the positive side of my reply. Of course, I am aware of the unsatisfactory accommodation at Scoil Íde and I intend to ensure that, as far as it lies within my power, full and satisfactory facilities will be provided for the numbers needed — and I emphasise the words "the numbers needed"— at the earliest possible date. Scoil Íde does not require accommodation for 600 plus pupils. It requires and will get full accommodation — general classrooms, laboratories and workshops and other ancillary facilities — for a number of the order of 350 to 400. It will get all the specialist rooms it needs for these numbers.

As I had arranged some time ago, a senior architect and a senior inspector visited the school within the last few days to assess the full accommodation requirements. I emphasise that that visit was as a result of representations made to me by Deputy Flaherty. I had arranged also for a meeting between senior officers of my Department and the chief executive officer of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee with a view to finalising the schedule of accommodation. This meeting will take place tomorrow.

I would be failing in my duty as Minister if I were to allow the project proceed on the basis of accommodation for 600 pupils with provision for expansion when all the facts point to the need for a school for 350 to 400 pupils. I could not stand over such a measure with its cost implications to the Exchequer.

I am conscious of the needs of the Finglas area. I can assure the House that the revised project, providing for full satisfactory accommodation including all necessary specialist rooms, will be processed without delay by my Department and that as soon as the project is ready for tender it will be proceeded with, without delay and in so far as possible.

I wish to make a few brief comments on points raised by Deputy Flaherty. I can understand her difficulty and anxiety in relation to the expiration of the planning permission by 1985 but I hope that before that date the extension to the school will be proceeded with.

The Deputy raised also the question of my receiving a deputation. I have no problem in regard to receiving deputations. It is not my practice to refuse Deputies in relation to receiving deputations but in that regard the Minister must have some information available to him. Once reports of the meetings that are taking place tomorrow are available I will be in a position to give more information to Deputies but no purpose would be served by my saying anything further until such information is available.

I wish to emphasise again that it would be ludicrous, especially in these difficult times, to provide buildings that would become white elephants in the future. At a time when resources are so scarce, it is necessary to take into account future needs. I hope that the building of the extension in question will proceed in a normal way if that is what the reports, when available, will indicate is necessary. I assure both Deputies that there will not be any undue delay so far as I am concerned.

The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 11 May 1983.