Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 18 Dec 2007

Vol. 644 No. 3

Adjournment Debate.

Medicinal Products.

Deputy Olwyn Enright

I appreciate the Minister for Health and Children has had a busy day but I am disappointed she is not present for the debate. While I welcome the Minister for Education and Science, this is a serious issue and I would have liked a direct response from the Minister for Health and Children. I first raised this issue with her in January 2006. It relates to two of my constituents and a small number of other people who are victims of the thalidomide problem that occurred across Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. They have been in negotiation and discussion with the Department of Health and Children for the past number of years but limited progress has been made. Their injuries are fully compatible with their mothers taking thalidomide during pregnancy. In the case of one woman, one of her arms and one side of her body is completely affected and her other arm has been affected in recent years. Discussions with the Department have not resulted in much progress.

The reason I raise the matter is that only four people remain in the world who have the necessary expertise, having dealt with thalidomide victims in the 1960s. They are based in England, Australia, Japan and Sweden. The Department of Health and Children has been in discussions with Dr. Kohler from Sweden. He is elderly but he indicated he would be prepared to travel to Ireland. However, the victims were told last July their cases would not be reviewed until November at the earliest. They still have not received a communication from the Department regarding a date for the reviews. The Department then sought additional information from the victims, some of whom are unable to provide such and require a medical assessment to be carried out.

I would like the Minister for Health and Children and the Department to give a commitment on a date for the assessment. Approximately five cases are before the Department currently. If Dr. Kohler is unable to travel to Ireland, I ask the Government to arrange for the victims to be brought to Sweden for the examinations to be carried out. This issue was raised in the House in 1973, 1974 and 1975 and I am concerned with the passage of time that the remaining experts may die and another Member will still be raising the plight of these people in ten years but the necessary expertise to carry out the relevant medical examinations will not be available.

The parents of the people in question were not able, for various reasons, to push forward the case on their behalf at the time. I appreciate the existence of medical difficulties that need to be overcome and that there may not be written evidence in the case of some of them. However, an examination of their medical condition will prove that their mothers were given the thalidomide drug, and on that basis they are entitled to be compensated.

I hope the response from the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Harney, will be positive. I particularly want to know when these people can expect to be called for an examination. I was told in discussions with the Department that the process it is undertaking is a benign and not a threatening one. However, the people in question have not been given the opportunity to have meetings with Department officials or to discuss this issue with anybody, other than with me as a public representative, and I have raised it with the Department on their behalf. While they have been offered prospective meetings they have not been offered the provision of advice at such meetings, which makes it difficult for some people to outline fully the nature of their condition. I look forward with interest to the Minister's response and I hope progress will be made for these people.

Minister for Education and Science (Deputy Mary Hanafin)

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter, to which I will respond on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children.

Exposure to thalidomide has had a huge impact on people's lives. I am conscious of the fact that thalidomide has affected and continues to affect the lives of a number of people, their families and friends. I have a good friend who is a victim of thalidomide who has had a wonderful academic and professional career and is also making an enormous contribution to the local community through music and involvement with choirs in Thurles.

The Department of Health and Children is considering applications from a number of individuals claiming exposure to thalidomide and requesting compensation for that exposure. It is the intention of the Department to write to each individual in the near future indicating whether he or she is being referred for specialist medical assessment. This decision is being based on the specialist medical evidence provided by each individual.

The Deputy will understand that, in view of the passage of time since the original scheme of compensation for the victims of thalidomide, the Department of Health and Children has had to carry out an extensive examination of documentation to obtain background information on the individuals and assess the most appropriate way to consider the applications. The Department is conscious of the need to progress this matter and is taking all appropriate actions to move this matter along.

The United Kingdom Thalidomide Trust has indicated that current practice worldwide is that acceptance of determining if disabilities are related to thalidomide relies on medical examination of the applicant and that medics have stopped trying to establish whether a mother took thalidomide as this was proving impossible to verify, given the time lapse.

The Department of Health and Children will use the services of an independent international medical examiner to carry out a medical assessment of the cases that provide corroborated specialist medical evidence indicating foetal exposure to thalidomide. It is the intention of the Department to make the necessary arrangements with individuals for the medical assessment by the international expert to take place early in the new year. I believe that answers the question the Deputy raised. The remainder of the script is background information on the issue for the Deputy.

Schools Building Projects.

Deputy Shane McEntee

I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise this matter. The Minister is probably sick of hearing of Laytown at this stage, but I have no option but to try to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion. It is ten years since it was accepted that a new school was needed in Laytown. I was not a councillor prior to being elected to this House and my introduction to politics was a promise by the Taoiseach, Deputy Mary Wallace and the then election candidate of the announcement of a new school for Laytown three years ago.

August 2006 was a defining moment when I, as a public representative, the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace and other public representatives in the area were called to a meeting at which it was pointed out that many children did not have the facility of a school to attend. The Department's answer to that issue and the way forward pointed out by the then Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, was that four year olds in the area should be brought to a school, put on a school bus and brought to a weigh room for jockeys in Bellewstown and that this facility would do rightly. That is where this process started. The parents of the children said "No" to that proposal at that meeting. They said there was no way they would send their children aged four on a school bus to be transported eight to ten miles on what is one of the worst roads in County Meath to that facility.

People were asked to put their political affiliations to one side. I and Thomas Byrne, then an election candidate — I do not know if he was announced as a candidate at that time — took on the issue of dealing with the objections in regard to the school. Nobody else came forward to do it. I knew it was a political minefield for me but I had a right to do it on behalf of the people. We were asked to do it, but we got only so far.

To cut a long story short, when everybody concerned had gone their separate ways, fourth and fifth class pupils were being accommodated in a gym in the other school in the area and the children starting school did not have the facility of a school to attend. Some people were brought to a meeting held in Buswells Hotel on 29 March. The meeting was attended by some of the parents, a teacher in the school, an election candidate, a local councillor, the Minister and a Department official. The Minister told those people that an application for planning permission for a new school would be submitted in May. She said that the contracts would be issued and gave a commitment that at the end of September next year a new school would be opened. I did not know anything about that at the time, but I was happy about that development. I knew that pursuing this issue was of no political benefit to me, but that did not matter because I believed it was a job worth doing. People worked together to pursue it. However, as of today no further progress has been made.

We have heard of announcement following announcement in recent weeks only to discover that planning permission for the new school has not even been submitted. We are not sure if the site has even been acquired. What annoys me more than anything else is that those people were invited to a meeting in Dublin and told that the application for planning permission would be submitted at the end of May, but that represented a deceit. The people were misled on that occasion. I am not allowed nor do I like to use the word that describes what happened in the Chamber. It was unacceptable to me as a politician for the Minister to tell those people that a planning permission application would be submitted for the school and that a new school would be opened at the end of September .

Deputy Mary Hanafin

It was.

Deputy Shane McEntee

No application for planning permission was submitted. The children are being accommodated in a school for which €60,000 per month is being paid in rent, but the 90 children there do not have an adequate play area and another 150 children will be enrolled next September. Then we wonder why there are problems such as bullying and drugs in our schools.

The most important issue is young people's education. Those people should not have been brought to a meeting in Buswells at 12 o'clock on 29 March and given that information. People in this country are the easiest in the world to get on with if they know what is happening. What happened on that occasion is the reason people do not have respect for politicians. Why were people given that information on 29 March when it was known that was not the case? As an ordinary person and a politician, I find it unacceptable that a member of Government should do that. If that is the Government's only way of getting on, we deserve what we get. Every child in the country has been misled. We have continued to facilitate building but we have provided nothing for the children and now we cannot control the situation. I have learned that one does not believe what one hears in here.

Why were the people of Laytown and Bettystown and the teachers brought a meeting in Buswells Hotel on 29 March and told that an application for planning permission was being submitted when the Department did not even own the site and the plans for the school were not even drawn up? If that is how much power means to those in Government, they are welcome to it.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

I am pleased to have this opportunity to outline the position regarding the new primary school in Laytown, County Meath. The Department has already provided a 16-classroom facility to meet the immediate accommodation requirements in Laytown. The Deputy seems to have overlooked that fact and that considerable publicity was given in September to the fact that the children were happy in their new facility, that the parents were delighted with the facility that had been provided and that it had been provided on time and on target.

Deputy Shane McEntee

That has nothing to do with what I am talking about. What I am talking about is what happened——

Acting Chairman (Deputy Brian O’Shea)

I ask the Deputy to resume his seat.

Deputy Shane McEntee

——on 29 March.

Acting Chairman

The Deputy must resume his seat.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

The new 24-classroom school building will be provided by my Department under a design and build contract.

Deputy Shane McEntee

What we were told was rubbish.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

The procurement process for this project is now nearing completion and it is expected that the contract will be awarded very soon.

Deputy Shane McEntee

We are being told more rubbish here.

Acting Chairman

The Deputy must resume his seat.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

I am sorry the Deputy has missed part of the answer.

Deputy Shane McEntee

I have not missed any answer.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

As part of the tender competition, the initial design and layout for the school has already been done and some pre-planning discussions have taken place with Meath County Council in order to help ensure that it meets their requirements.

Following the placing of the design and build contract, the first task for the successful contractor will be to submit the application for planning permission for the new school. Given the preparatory work already done, it is expected that the application for planning permission can be done within a matter of weeks following the appointment. I assure the Deputy that the Department is committed to commencing construction of the new school as soon as possible following receipt of planning permission. It is important that the application goes through as smooth a process as possible, given previous history.

Last week, I outlined details of how €594 million is to be spent on school building projects in the coming year. The majority of this funding will be targeted at primary level and will enable my Department to continue the process of providing new school places and modernising existing facilities in schools throughout the country, with a particular emphasis on meeting the new and emerging needs in developing areas such as Laytown. Since 1997 a total of €3.6 billion has been invested in school buildings and this has delivered over 9,300 school building projects. This further investment of €594 million will build on these achievements and will focus in particular on the provision of school accommodation in areas where the population is growing at a rapid rate.

The NDP investment of over €4.5 billion will enable my Department to continue to transform the standard of school facilities throughout the country. I assure the Deputy that we are committed to providing suitable high quality accommodation for Laytown at the earliest possible date. I said as much earlier, but the Deputy did not appear to be listening.

Deputy Shane McEntee

May I reply?

Acting Chairman

No, you cannot.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

The Deputy cannot.

Deputy Shane McEntee

Why not?

Acting Chairman

The Deputy must resume his seat.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

It is not allowed.

Deputy Shane McEntee

If that is all the Minister can offer the people of Laytown, so be it. It is a poor day for this country when the Minister can bring people here on 29 March and tell them——

Acting Chairman

Deputy, the Chair is on its feet.

Deputy Shane McEntee

It is a poor day when the Minister sneers at the people of Laytown.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

I did not sneer at them. There is no facility for a Member to speak again on the Adjournment.

Deputy Shane McEntee

The Minister should tell them the truth.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

They got a lovely facility in September.

Deputy Liz McManus

The matter I wish to raise is St. Mary's and St. Gerard's national school. This school is bursting at the seams and has now reached a critical stage in terms of the number of pupils. I ask the Minister to honour a commitment she made before the last general election and to ensure that the children attending the school are treated fairly.

This school provides for the growing population of Enniskerry and its catchment area, some of which is within the Minister's constituency. Despite that fact, the school has not been given the go ahead to develop new capacity and to become a 16-classroom school. This issue has been ongoing for many years. Indeed, while Enniskerry stagnated on the waiting list, other schools nearby got the green light. When the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, came under pressure during the general election campaign about her neglect of the school building programme, she ensured a letter was sent from the Department to the chairperson of the board of management stating clearly that the accommodation will provide for the staffing and building of 16 mainstream classrooms. The letter also stated that the school planning section would advise the technical staff to visit the school as soon as possible to verify the necessary additional accommodation required.

The letter was warmly welcomed. The election was held but, shamefully, since the letter was sent on 10 May nothing has been heard from the Department about the technical staff that were due to visit. This is unacceptable. The school's situation is becoming desperate. The parents and staff need to know when the project will begin and when the commitment made in writing by the Minister to the board of management will be honoured.

Deputy Andrew Doyle

The letter of 10 May from an official in the planning section in the Department of Education and Science only gave false hope after many years of campaigning for additional classrooms. The school had been approved for a smaller extension in 2001 but was then told that it required, and would be given, 16 mainstream classrooms as well as ancillary accommodation. However, the letter neglected to state what band status the school had been given.

On 8 November, I received a letter from the school principal. She was under the impression that the school had been assigned category one or band one status. In response to a parliamentary question from me on 4 December, the Minister replied that applications for large-scale capital funding projects are assessed against published prioritisation criteria and, as such, the school had been assigned band two status. The Minister is shaking her head but that was in the reply I received on 4 December. The letter sent on 10 May was disingenuous, to say the least. The timing speaks for itself. It was sent to give people false hope, after years of campaigning, during a general election campaign and to buy votes. There is no other way to describe it.

I have put down a parliamentary question seeking the details of the published prioritisation criteria. I am seeking an explanation for how Enniskerry can only be assigned category two status, given its demographics, location and the fact that it is under serious pressure from surrounding areas as the other local schools are also full. I hope I will get as direct a response as the one I received on 4 December, which categorically states that the school has band two status, not band one. How was the school principal under the impression that the school had category one status? The school's projections are that there will be two extra classrooms of enrolments each year but it is the same size as it was 20 years ago. It was approved for a smaller extension six years ago but nothing has happened.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

As the Deputies stated, an application for an extension to St. Mary's and St. Gerard's national school was received. When the original application was made, the extension would have been too small for the school's needs. Subsequently, an assessment was made of the long-term needs of the school and it was determined, and agreed with the school authority, that the school should be extended to a 16 mainstream classroom school.

I wish to confirm to the Deputy that the school has a band one rating. There must have been a mistake in the reply to the parliamentary question. The letter sent to the board of management was correct.

Deputy Andrew Doyle

Was the reply to the parliamentary question wrong?

Deputy Mary Hanafin

Band one is the correct status. The band one rating is the highest rating and that was indicated to the principal in November.

Deputy Andrew Doyle

Yes, but the reply of 4 December states otherwise.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

The letter to the principal is correct. I confirm that for the Deputy. The school has band one status. It is located in a rapidly developing area. Band one status is the highest rating a school can get within the building programme. Approximately €600 million will be available for the school building programme next year and the school's band one status gives it a very high priority. Progression of the project will take place in the context of the next multi-annual building programme.

Deputy Liz McManus

When will the technical staff visit the school, as the Minister promised?

Deputy Mary Hanafin

I will ask the technical staff. It has band one status.

Deputy Liz McManus

Will the Minister let us know?

Deputy Andrew Doyle

May I ask the Minister a question?

Acting Chairman

No. The Deputy who raised the previous matter wished to ask a question and was prevented from doing so.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

I will clarify the reply to the parliamentary question.

Schools Amalgamation.

Deputy Jimmy Deenihan

I am glad the Minister can be present this evening. I wish to make a special request of her. The proposed new national school for Ballybunion is based on the amalgamation of Scoil Pio Naofa, the boys national school, and St. Joseph's girls national school. The schools are in two old buildings that are structurally substandard. Scoil Pio Naofa was built in 1929 and is a small, two classroom, damp, stone building. Both schools are in designated rural disadvantaged areas. A file for a new school in Ballybunion was opened 30 years ago in the Department of Education. In 2000, the staff of Scoil Pio Naofa and St. Joseph's agreed to amalgamate in a new building. The Bishop of Kerry agreed in 2004 to release a large greenfield site on Church Road in Ballybunion for the new school. On 13 January 2006, the Department of Education and Science agreed funding for a new building. The boards of management of both schools agreed to a generic plan to speed up the process because Scoil Pio Naofa in particular was extremely substandard. On 11 June 2006, the design team was selected. The Ballybunion project has now reached the final stage of the six stages it had to complete and is waiting for the announcement of a contractor and the signing of a contract.

Recently, rats were found in a prefab attached to Scoil Pio Naofa, an incident that was highlighted in the Kerry’s Eye newspaper, which stated:

Rats force kids from classroom. Health of pupils a worry at Ballybunion prefab.

The Kerryman newspaper reported: "The principal of Scoil Pio Naofa, Ballybunion, Eibhlín Walsh, said that she fears for the health and safety of the school boys who were forced to study in a dangerous 20 year-old pre-fab." These pupils had to be moved to a holiday lodge across the road from the school. I understand the school's principal contacted the Department but the latter was only prepared to pay for the rental of the holiday lodge being used by the students. The situation resulted in an editorial in The Kerryman which stated:

sub-standard education facilities in Kerry have become an all-too familiar news story over the last decade.

The context in which these unacceptable situations arise is important; occurring at a time of unprecedented wealth in this country.

When it comes to the welfare and education of our children, the State stands accused of hypocrisy and double-standards of the most serious form.

On the one hand, we boast an education system and standards in this country that remain the envy of most countries in the developed world. At the same time, successive governments refused to acknowledge and failed to act on a situation where some of these education standards were attained and maintained in conditions more akin to war-torn or famine stricken nations.

The plight of the board of management, the principal and the school of Scoil Pio Naofa did not develop overnight. We now know that a proper school was wanting in Ballybunion long before the timber began to rot and rats decided to move in.

A former principal of a school in England wrote in a letter to the newspaper that he felt embarrassed as an Irishman when he read the story about rat-infested conditions in Ballybunion school. He became aware of the dire conditions in many Kerry schools since returning from England.

I urge the Minister to ensure that the tender documents are accepted so that a contractor can be appointed immediately after Christmas to commence work. It is unacceptable that the children are expected to receive their education in a holiday home. Account should also be taken of the conditions in the convent school and the two stone classrooms. I thank the Minister for attending for this Adjournment matter. Will she give me a positive response that I can pass on to the parents concerned?

Deputy Mary Hanafin

I thank Deputy Deenihan for raising this issue. I hope the local newspaper is as laudatory of the multi-million sums that have been spent on schools in County Kerry. I have had the pleasure of opening extensions and new buildings in the county and I am sure they will give equal coverage to that.

Deputy Jimmy Deenihan

They will if the Minister has good news this evening.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

With 4,000 schools throughout the country, it has only been in recent years that we have made substantial progress. County Kerry has done well because it has so many small schools. It is always a great pleasure to visit them. The fact that so many educational conferences seem to take place in the county means that I visit more schools there than anywhere else.

Deputy Jimmy Deenihan

We value education in Kerry. It is important for us.

Deputy Mary Hanafin

That is true but it also applies in respect of other counties. In regard to the school building for Ballybunion, planning permission, a fire certificate and the tender report for the project are being examined by the Department's building unit. This will lead to the provision of a new two storey, eight classroom generic repeat design school. As the Deputy might be aware, generic repeat design is an efficient method of speedily delivering top quality schools because it means we do not have to go through all the usual processes of design and architectural planning.

We are spending €540 million this year and nearly €600 million next year on school buildings. This school, the planning process for which is well under way, will be considered in the context of the multi-annual school building and modernisation programme. I intend to announce in January the first tranche of projects which will go to construction in 2008 and there will be further announcements during the year as the school building programme is rolled out.

Deputy Jimmy Deenihan

I appeal to the Minister to ensure Ballybunion is included in the programme. It would be her Christmas present to me.

The Dáil adjourned at 11.15 p.m. until10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 December 2007.