Deputy McCartan gave me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject of accommodation at Gaelscoil Míde, Baldoyle, County Dublin.
Adjournment Debate. - Gaelscoil Míde (Dublin).
I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise this very important and pressing issue and to thank the Minister for finding the time to listen to what I have to say on behalf of the parents and pupils of that very impressive but hard-pressed school. As I indicated when I raised the matter, I propose to share my time with Deputy Michael Joe Cosgrave.
The history of Gaelscoil Míde must be briefly referred to in order to illustrate the urgency and strength of the issues surrounding it. It started in 1981 with 16 pupils and one teacher. It was facilitated initially with a cabin premises in the grounds of the Church of Ireland school in Raheny. Within a very short period of time that was fire damaged by accident and the school was obliged to move on to nearby premises in the newly constructed St. Vincents GAA club, also in Raheny, where, with the kind permission of the club, they occupied the committee room there for two years. Because of their growing numbers they moved on again in 1982 to Baldoyle, their present location, initially occupying three rooms in the premises with three classes of 30 pupils serviced by two teachers. They started off upstairs in the community hall, again by permission of the community association. In time they were obliged to move on to the stage of the meeting hall in the community premises which was cordoned off and made available to them for classroom purposes.
The school continued to grow and in 1983 moved in part across the road to the convent and there, again by kind permission of the Sisters of Charity, they were afforded the use of a room. A second room was given to them in 1985. Each year as they grew demands for space also grew. Through their own efforts and negotiations and the goodwill of everyone concerned they managed to accommodate themselves. Everyone who comes in contact with that school has nothing but goodwill for them and I know that extends as far as the Minister and the Department. Now they have taken up a prefabricated building across the road in a third location where another class was located, this time on ground belonging to the nuns, and one year later into a second prefabricated building close by in grounds belonging to the parish.
At the end of their brief seven year history they are in multiple locations and have approximately three landlords, all of whom are treating them well but giving them very limited and inadequate facilities for their needs. In September they will expect 32 to 33 extra pupils, uniquely for primary schools throughout our constituency — it is a school that is growing while others, because of population trends, are decreasing. Gaelscoil Míde is increasing and will rapidly increase to a doubling if not a trebling of their numbers within a very short period of time once adequate and fair conditions are found for them.
This school is recognised by the Department, is funded by the Department and the Department pay for facilities as best they can. Nevertheless, the school does not measure up to the regulations of the Department in terms of space for pupils; it can only provide something over one square metre per pupil, whereas I understand the regulations require two square metres per pupil. This is a serious problem which must be addressed without delay.
Another aspect is the question of transport. Each parent pays £12 per month per pupil to be bussed to their location in Baldoyle which is not in the catchment area of the school. A family with more than one pupil pays £20 per month for their own transport which they have been providing from their own resources since the inception of the school. This is obviously a pressing issue at the moment.
All of the parents of this school and all fhíor Gaelscoileanna look to the basic document of our country, the Constitution, in particular Article 8, which states that the Irish language is the first official language of the State, but I believe that Article 42 is of even more significance from their point of view. Under Article 42.1 the State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the family and it guarantees to respect that right. The parents of all of these pupils have elected, as is their right under Article 42.3 of the Constitution, to send their children to a particular school and they should not be hindered in any way and under Article 42.3.2º the Constitution outlines that one of the factors which should be considered is the actual conditions of schooling. I am sure the Article which has been quoted to the Minister most often is Article 42.4 which states that the State shall provide for free primary education.
I believe that the State is failing the parents and pupils of Gaelscoil Míde in respect of each of those provisions. If we take into account the contribution which the parents must make in respect of transport costs and other charges to maintain the premises, their right to free education does not exist. Their preference for a fíor Gaelscoil and teaching facility is not being respected. This is a facility that the Department like to promote and want to promote but the big question which faces me as a Deputy and as a representative of the area and all others concerned, is why does Gaelscoil Míde have to wait so long for a positive response from the Department?
The number of parents who have come here tonight to listen to what the Minister has to say to them, within a few short hours of being notified that we had the opportunity to discuss this matter on the floor of the House, is a reflection of the great spirit which exists, a spirit which was referred to in the correspondence which I, along with Deputy Fitzgerald and Deputy Cosgrave, who are present in the House, received and this must be responded to in a very positive way. I hope the Minister will be able to say something positive to them in that respect tonight.
What needs to be done? Obviously a single location is required for the school within the heart of its catchment area in Donaghmede. There are premises available but they will not become available for perhaps another five years. There is an urgent need for an interim solution. The school is seeking a single location and they say anywhere within reason. They are looking to the Minister to provide free transport for their pupils getting to and from wherever they are accommodated in the coming year. They cannot be expected to provide a fifth part to the school in the Baldoyle area in an effort to meet growing numbers. They want to meet with the Minister and I hope the Minister will be able to meet with them because I cannot convey to her the enthusiasm and spirit of the parents. They can only do that themselves, along with their board of management and teachers. I ask the Minister to meet with them at her earliest convenience to discuss their cause.
There are premises available in the immediate area but one of the remarkable facets of the educational system which has to be addressed some day is that the Department provide funds for the building of schools and the payment of staff but at the end of the day the Minister has no control over the disposal or use of premises. It is remarkable that premises which could be made available are not being made available because there is a possibility that those premises could be sold privately for the gain of the diocese. This is an issue which will have to be addressed, and I ask the Minister to take the issue solidly on her shoulders, in the context of the long-term solution, which is the provision of premises. The boards of managements in two schools cannot be left to fight it out on this issue. Firm leadership is needed and I know the Minister will provide this as she has on many other issues during the year.
I have said all I need to say on this issue. I am aware that Deputy Cosgrave wants to join with me in my plea to the Minister to respond positivley. We leave this House next week and the next opportunity we will have to do anything about this matter on the floor of the House is one month after the new school term commences. I hope that in the interim the Minister will be able to concede to this request made on behalf of the parents and pupils of Gaelscoil Míde and that a resolution can be found to this problem.
First of all, a Cheann Comhairle, I would like to thank you for allowing us to raise this important issue on the Adjournment and, secondly, I thank my colleague, Deputy McCartan, for sharing his time with me. I will probably repeat much of what he said and much of what I said last week when I spoke about this issue during the debate on the Estimates. However, it is worth repeating. Due to the extreme accommodation crisis the very existence of Gaelscoil Míde is threatened. This growing all-Irish primary school is temporarily situated in the Baldoyle area. This small school is divided among four buildings and its 182 pupils are housed in an old convent school providing two classes, an old community hall containing four classes and two prefabs in the convent school grounds. Worse again, the school is separated by a busy, dangerous main street and its junction with Willie Nolan Road, Baldoyle. If equipment is transferred from one section of the school, persons must cross this busy and dangerous main street to gain access to the other section of Gaelscoil Míde. School children face dangers daily crossing at this dangerous junction.
Infant classes in the old convent school are using upstairs classrooms and teachers must accompany the pupils when using toilets which are situated downstairs. I understand that according to Department of Education rules upstairs classes should not be used where infants are involved. To say the least, an old hall, an old convent school and two prefabs are just not good enough in this day and age to provide the proper environment for teachers and pupils to work together successfully in the full development of students.
The board of management, staff and parents of Gaelscoil Míde are demanding that the school be unified under one roof in suitable accommodation not far from its home base in Donaghmede until permanent accommodation becomes available for the school. The Department of Education recognise the right of Gaelscoil Míde to this unit. They have thus far failed in their efforts to find a suitable building for Gaelscoil Míde for the coming new school year and there are just ten weeks left to the start of the new school term. The people of Gaelscoil Míde are very angry at the treatment that they and their children have received and at the lack of positive planning for the school's future. A very telling example of this is the fact that the permanent location of Gaelscoil Míde has still not clearly been established seven years after the foundation of the school. Another is that Gaelscoil Míde will have five different buildings for its 200 plus pupils in September if proper accommodation is not provided.
During the term of the last Government negotiations were at an advanced stage to purchase a two and a half acre site in the Donaghmede area from the Irish Christian Brothers. The parents helped to negotiate a very favourable price for this site. I understand that the cost was £17,500 per acre. However, on the election of the present Government, and due to the severe cutbacks imposed in 1987, the purchase of this site fell through. There are four schools in the Donaghmede area and a decline in pupil numbers. The Department have indicated that space may become available in Scoil Caoimhín. However, like Deputy McCartan, I cannot see this happening. Perhaps this space may become available in 1992. Scoil Íosagáin in Kilbarrack could provide temporary accommodation in September. However, I understand that that school may be offered for sale and I urge the Minister to consider this school rather than to sell it off. Perhaps temporary accommodation could be provided there.
The parents are demanding that the Department provide free transport for the pupils of Gaelscoil Míde to and from wherever they will be temporarily accommodated in the future. For many years individual householders in Donaghmede have spent hundreds of pounds each year on coach fares to get their children to school. I should also like to point out to the Minister that this is a very popular school in the Donaghmede and Baldoyle areas and it deserves that grant support. I understand that there is a precedent for it because Gaelscoil Inse Chór was provided with this type of transport by the Department. I urge the Minister to do everything possible to provide Gaelscoil Míde with a school premises in the very near future.
How many minutes do I have?
Ten minutes.
May I give three or four minutes of my time to Deputy Fitzgerald?
Does the House agree to that?
Deputies
Yes.
I have become very familiar with this problem during the past four or five years. I want to put on the record of this House how dearly and closely I cherish the aspirations of Gaelscoil Míde. On a number of occasions I have visited the school in Baldoyle and I am totally at one with the sentiments expressed in relation to the unsatisfactory and most unpedagogic nature of the conditions there. The conditions there are not in keeping with what should be a proper or adequate teaching environment. I know the Minister and her Minister of State are fully at one with me in regard to those sentiments. They have a full brief of what obtains in that school and they are fully supportive of the view that the conditions are wrong, not adequate and need to be redressed. However, I am also aware, from my ongoing discussions with the Minister and her Minister of State, that they are doing everything in their power to redress the situation. I am sure Deputy Cosgrave, my colleague across the floor, whose party have served a number of years in Government, is very au fait with the conditions in relation to primary schools and with the authority the Department have and knows that they cannot wave a magic wand and simply overnight accommodate a Gaelscoil in an all-English primary school.
There is an archdiocesan problem there. The Minister may not refer to it, but I am referring to it because I know about the problem from my research as a primary school teacher. There is a problem also in relation to the principals of schools who have found that the numbers in their own schools have fallen and who believe that a Gaelscoil would provide competition for them and which, by virtue of it being in situ in that school complex, might cause the demise of that primary school much sooner than might otherwise happen. I am aware of all their problems.
The Minister is fully aware of my concern, which has been expressed to her on many occasions, in relation to Gaelscoil Míde. Her Minister of State is also equally aware of the problems and he recently visited the Gaelscoil with me. I am very anxious that a single building be provided to accommodate the Gaelscoil. I must say to the Minister that recognising her difficulties — and I must recognise her difficulties — and the authority she has, I have taken the initiative over the past couple of weeks in relation to Gaelscoil Míde. I hope that initiative — and I mean no disrespect to the Minister — which is outside the remit of her Department might bear, some fruit in the next week or two. I encourage the Minister, in the context of the enthusiasm she has for a solution to this problem, to support me, which I know she will, and my colleagues, Deputies Cosgrave and McCartan, and to come up with a final solution to it.
First, I should like to thank the Deputies who contributed to the debate — my colleague, Deputy Fitzgerald, Deputy McCartan, who sought for many days to raise this matter on the Adjournment, Deputy Cosgrave, who spoke on the issue last Friday, and my ministerial colleague, Deputy Woods, who has spoken to me constantly about it. Obviously, this question spans all political divides.
I agree with all the Members that there is a need to have a solution to the problem for Gaelscoil Míde. This school has expanded during the seven years since it was set up from its very modest beginnings to 182 pupils at present. This deep commitment on behalf of the parents who want their children taught in a Gaelscoil is in itself proof of what is needed. Since I came into office I have made very strenuous efforts to give recognition to Gaelscoileanna, recognition which the previous Government had been remiss and tardy in giving to them throughout their administration. The present accommodation for Gaelscoil Míde is not proper and I fully accept that conditions in the school are not satisfactory. Since the school obtained permanent recognition from the Department in 1984 the provision of suitable permanent accommodation for the school has been under active consideration. Of course, we all know that it was hoped that a site in Hole-in-the-Wall Road in Donaghmede, the property of the Christian Brothers, could be purchased so that a new school building could be erected. Some negotiations in this respect had taken place. However, this did not prove possible for various reasons, not quite for the reasons given by Deputy Cosgrave. I have the files in my Department and I will, when I meet the deputation from Gaelscoil Míde——
The Minister——
Please, Deputy Cosgrave.
I conveyed to Deputy Cosgrave in the House last Friday that at Deputy Fitzgerald's instigation and impetus I would meet with a deputation once the House had risen. I repeat that commitment, which was asked of me again tonight by Deputy McCartan. I want to say to the parents in the Gallery that of course I will meet them. I have never failed to meet a group who wanted to meet me. It is the easiest way to do one's business — you meet folk and they tell you what their troubles are. I have all of the files and information and I will be able to correct some of the errors which have arisen.
A number of proposals are being considered urgently by my Department in consultation with the school authorities for the provision of suitable alternative accommodation for the school at the earliest possible date. I share Deputy McCartan's view that an interim solution on one site is the first necessary step, with the ongoing magic date of 1992 perhaps as the date for the final solution — and I do not mean "final solution" in the terms in which it is often talked about. I share the Deputy's concern that suitable premises should be provided on a permanent basis. I am constrained from indicating the specific school premises which are being considered because I am in intimate consultation with the archdiocese, as are the officials in my Department, on a permanent home for Gaelscoil Míde. I am not in a position either at this point to say when that alternative accommodation will be available but I can say unequivocally that my Department officials are fully bent on seeing that this issue is resolved. I have told them to bend might and main to the resolution of the problem. I accept fully that an urgent solution to Gaelscoil Míde's problems is needed and I can assure the Deputies in the House, Deputy Woods, the community representative, the parents who are here with us tonight, the school authorities, the teachers and, of course, the students, who are suffering the ultimate disturbance in the accommodation they are in, that the Department are taking all the necessary steps to ensure that the difficulties will be resolved at the earliest possible date.
I wish to refer briefly to a philosophical point, but a correct one, raised by Deputy McCartan and one which is exercising me very much within the Department. Because of the falling population, in a very few years there will be a surplus of accommodation which will have been dearly bought, constructed and put up by taxpayers' money. This is an issue I will bend my mind to. The Department are in constant contact with the school authorities in relation to this matter an soon as there is a positive develop they will be advised at once.
I should like to pay tribute to the mendable achievements of Gaelscoil from its modest and in picious beginnings years ago and to the commitment, tenacity, verve and vig with which the parents and all concer have stuck to their guns on this is My Department and I will not be for wanting. I am particularly pleased the tentative initiative outlined Deputy Liam Fitzgerald, which I hope have elaborated on within the next few days. In accordance with the commitment that I gave that Deputy. I look forward to meeting representatives of the various interests involved in Gaelsc Míde, hopefully within a couple of wee
The Dáil adjourned at 11.05 p.m. un 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 23 June 1988