Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Apr 1997

Vol. 478 No. 5

Private Members' Business. - Moville (Donegal) School.

Cecilia Keaveney

I am disappointed that the Minister for Education has not turned up but I welcome the Minister of State.

The matter I am raising is an important one which pertains to my home town — that is my declared interest. A decision was made in September 1996 to amalgamate St. Brigid's national school and St. Joseph's boys' national school and form Scoil Eoghain after two years of complete and utter chaos in the boys' school.

The boys' school building is very old and in a sad state of disrepair. For two years there was low morale among the staff, parents, students and even the board of management. The principal teacher retired early the previous year and it proved almost impossible to find a replacement because of the state of the school building in which the person was expected to work. People arrived for interview, saw the place and left and the school received national media coverage at the time.

However, after lengthy and protracted negotiations, a principal, Mr. Gerard McGeehan, was finally found to replace the previous principal following a year without a principal at the school. He proceeded quickly with the idea of the amalgamation and he worked very hard. He brought the parents on board. They thought, as I did, that the Department was on board too. It had promised priority action. It said we should first undertake a modest refurbishment of the boys' school and necessary repairs in the girls' school. In the longer term, it said it would build four classrooms on the girls' site to create a viable solution for the future.

The people of Moville, County Donegal, are realistic. They are not looking for something grand. They agreed that the modest refurbishment of the boys' school and the repairs to the girls' school were sufficient in the short-term, but this so-called utmost priority will not be even considered in this financial year; it has already been put off until next year. The school is being provided with a prefabricated classroom in the short-term but the reality is that what was a boys' school is now a boys' and girls' school. There is only one set of shared toilets, windows are coming loose from their frames and people are concerned about the children's safety. I could refer to a number of other deficiencies but the Department is aware of the situation and stated that the matter would be given priority.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the people of Moville believe they are not being given fair treatment with regard to other aspects of this issue. According to the information I received, Moville is the only parish in north Inishowen which did not receive funding under the disadvantaged areas scheme. What makes Scoil Eoghan, Moville, with its poor buildings and facilities, more advantaged than the other schools in Inishowen? It is not high unemployment, the absence of industry, the high percentage of single parent families and broken homes or the poor tradition of community fundraising in the area. Many people in Moville are socially excluded.

The "Breaking the Cycle" initiative includes ten schools in north Inishowen which are relatively new, well resourced and have active parents' committees. Those concerned resent the lack of basic facilities in Scoil Eoghan when other schools have obtained additional resources. This issue centres around the fact that the people of Moville were under the impression that Scoil Eoghan had been given priority in September 1996. They worked hard to initiate the amalgamation and put a principal in place. The principal has done a great amount of good work and the parents and the board of management are cooperating with him. However, he believes the Department has not supported his efforts.

This is a worthwhile cause. The people of Moville realise the nature of the situation and are not seeking the immediate construction of a new school. They accept this is not a priority at present but hope that it will become one in the near future. They are seeking immediate repairs, not new classrooms, because the circumstances in which their children are obliged to learn must be addressed. They are demanding that equitable treatment be given to the parents and children of Moville and requesting that immediate funding be made available for refurbishment work. That must be done by including Moville in the disadvantaged areas scheme.

I can forward to the Minister of State the letter I received from the principal of Scoil Eoghan, which was co-signed by the chairman of the board of management, outlining the community's strong feelings about this matter. I would appreciate it if the Minister of State took the points raised in the letter on board. I hope his response to the debate will be positive.

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

I am grateful that the Deputy has given me the opportunity to outline my Department's position regarding Scoil Eoghan, Moville, County Donegal. As she already stated, in September 1996 St. Joseph's boys' school amalgamated with the Convent of Mercy national school to form Scoil Eoghan.

The amalgamated school will operate from the two buildings in the short-term. In the longer term, the proposal is to provide an extension to the existing girls' school to house the amalgamated centre. It is anticipated enrolments in the schools will decline and a total of eight classrooms will be required on the girls' school site. The former St. Joseph's school has a current staffing of one principal and five assistants in addition to the services of a shared remedial teacher. The accommodation at the school consists of four permanent classrooms and a general purpose room. My Department recently sanctioned a grant towards the provision of a double prefabricated unit to be sited at the boys' national school which will assist in alleviating the short-term accommodation difficulties.

I understand the school has applied for planning permission for the prefab unit. The Minister for Education is aware that urgent refurbishment works, at an estimated cost of £50,000, are required at both schools, the majority of the work being necessary at the boys' school. Funding for these works must be considered in the context of existing contractual commitments and other priority projects. At present, all available finance is committed on current capital projects and on grants already approved. The Minister is not in a position at this point to provide immediate funding for the proposed refurbishments at the former St. Joseph's school. She will, however, keep expenditure on the primary school building programme under review during the year. In that context, the needs of Scoil Eoghan will be considered at the earliest opportunity.

I should put the current financial situation in context. When the Minister for Education took office in 1993, she was faced with a backlog of 300 urgent major school projects. These projects accumulated as a result of substantial cuts on the capital funding for primary schools in the period 1988-92. In the past four years, the Government increased the capital funding of schools significantly and substantial progress has been made in reducing the backlog. I accept that more needs to be done.

I will now address the Deputy's interest in having Scoil Eoghan included in the disadvantaged areas scheme. The Minister has no proposals to extend disadvantaged area status to additional primary schools. The scheme was last expanded in 1994 when an additional 54 primary schools were newly included.

Scoil Eoghan has been an amalgamated school since October 1996. The amalgamated school is comprised of two schools that were based in the area, namely Scoil Ioseph and St. Brigid's, Moville, County Donegal. Both schools applied and were considered for inclusion in the disadvantaged areas scheme in 1994. Unfortunately, when regard was had to the relative levels of need among competing schools, the needs of the individual schools were not considered to be of such priority as to warrant their inclusion on that occasion. Traditionally, schools have been selected for inclusion in the disadvantaged areas scheme on the basis of priority of need as reflected under a range of socio-economic indicators.The indicators in question took account of such factors as levels of unemployment, medical card holding and local authority housing occupancy among the families of the children concerned.

However, in 1995, the Minister commissioned the Combat Poverty Agency and the Education Research Centre to conduct a detailed review of current approaches to addressing the problem of educational disadvantage. The Minister's decision to commission this study arose from a concern to ensure that supports were properly targeted and children with real need were in a position to benefit from the scheme. The criteria used in selecting schools for special support and the nature of the supports provided were among the issues addressed in the study. Among the key issues raised by the study was a concern that under the current selection criteria, the scheme did not have due regard to rural and dispersed disadvantage. It was recommended that the criteria used in selecting schools for support be amended to better reflect educational disadvantage as manifested in rural as well as urban settings.

It was also recommended that a more targeted approach be adopted with resources being directed towards the most disadvantaged urban and rural areas. The report considered that disadvantaged area supports should be confined to 16 per cent of the school-going population. In this connection, it was noted the present scheme already extends to more than 17 per cent of pupils. In response to these findings, the Minister recently launched a new targeted initiative which aims to break the cycle of educational disadvantage in selected urban and rural areas.

The operation of the "Breaking the Cycle" initiative is being closely monitored by the Department's inspectorate and the project will be evaluated by the Education Research Centre. The outcome of this evaluation will provide a basis for considering future developments in supports for disadvantaged areas. In the event of any such developments being undertaken, the needs of the school to which the Deputy refers will be fully considered.