I welcome the opportunity to raise the case of Scoil Uí Mhuirí, Dunleer, County Louth, a school built in 1954 with four classrooms to cater for 60 students. A total of 49 years later there are 354 students and the four original classrooms are supplemented by two other classrooms, 14 prefabricated classrooms and one prefabricated staff room. There are now 26 teachers at the school.
The 354 students still have only the toilets built for the 60 students in 1954. That is hardly progress. Could any Minister be proud of this situation, given the huge economic growth the State has experienced? In all weathers, including freezing wet winter days, students and teachers have to go outdoors to move between classes. The prefabricated classrooms are unsuitable. They are freezing in winter and stuffy and hot in summer. Two of the prefabricated classrooms have problems with rotting windows. There are electrical cables all over the place and they represent a great danger. Pupils have nowhere to put their bags and coats as there is no room for lockers.
When I visited the school recently, the principal showed me a file three inches thick with correspondence with former Ministers for Education and Science, from former Deputy Gemma Hussey to Senator O'Rourke, promising a new building for the school. Those campaigning for a new school have met every Minister for Education and Science since 1983. How can the teachers of Scoil Uí Mhuirí explain to students the reason they are being denied equal access to education as a result of the deplorable conditions at the school? How can they instil confidence in their students in the functioning of the State when they hold innumerable letters from Ministers making promises that have long been broken? Is the practice of Ministers making promises that they will not keep honourable behaviour?
What has happened to the new school building promised to the people of Dunleer over 20 years ago? The plans have been with the Department since May 2002 and are just awaiting the go-ahead. The site has already been acquired. Have I to tell parents that their children will have to face another winter with no idea when the school will be replaced? The Minister should not give an evasive answer but outline a time frame within which the construction of the new school will proceed. In a reply I received today from the Minister to a parliamentary question I submitted on this issue he stated budgetary provisions for 2004 and subsequent years would determine the rate of progression to tender and construction of these projects. This is not good enough.
The Government must make a clear commitment to provide the funding for capital investment in education in order that all children of the State will be able to access education on an equal basis. Natural justice and basic rights require it. Teachers, children and their parents are entitled to nothing less. The Minister's reply to my question further illustrates the point made by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his report for 2002 that the absence of multi-annual funding is a significant obstacle to providing time frames for delivery of work under the schools building programme. The coalition Government's record on the programme is shameful. It has been suggested that it will take 40 years to complete it as it stands. Scoil Uí Mhuirí has waited 20 years. Am I to tell the people of the area that they must wait a further 20 years?
