I would like to indicate, if I may, that I would like to give two minutes of my time to Senator Joe Costello if he is able to be back on time from a union meeting.
The motion concerns the building of a school in Waterford Street-Seán McDermott Street, commitments about which were given a considerable number of years ago. I would like first of all to pay considered tribute to the work of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee in the valiant efforts they have made to continue the education of children and young adults in the north inner city which, as the Minister knows, is a very deprived area of our capital city.
I would like to give a brief history of how the situation emerged. St. Garvan's Vocational School, 3 Great Denmark Street, and Parnell Girls' Vocational School, 1 Parnell Square, have been operating for the past 40 years serving the needs of Dublin's north inner city post-primary students. When the schools were opened in the 1940s it was envisaged that the premises being used were merely temporary. The premises were two Georgian houses approximately 200 years old. Even then they were considered unsuitable as use for schools and they certainly are today and have remained so.
One point I wish to come back to at the end of what I have to say is the fact that whereas I applaud the educational efforts of the VEC I deplore their absolute lack of any custodial responsibility of a series of extremely important houses in the inner city of Dublin. The vandalising of No. 1 Parnell Square, of No. 20 North Great George's Street and of the Great Denmark site constitutes a considerable reproach to anybody and particularly to an educational body. However, they were placed in a situation where they were being asked to make bricks without straw and I pity them for the situation in which they found themselves.
With the advent of free post-primary education in the late sixties and the consequent great increase in student numbers, the need for new accommodation became acute: that is, 25 years ago the problem was becoming acute. A replacement school was approved by the post-primary advisory council in the early seventies and the City of Dublin VEC began to look for a suitable site. It seemed at that point that there was a distinct possibility that this dream of a new inner city publicly-funded school would be a reality, and in pursuance of the incarnation of this dream a series of sites were looked at and the project was then actively researched.
Sites were looked at at Broadstone, Grangegorman, Mountjoy Square, North Great George's Street and a number of other options. The intention was the purchase of alternative buildings. Nothing came of any of these plans, as the Minister knows. As the years went by the conditions became worse. The buildings deteriorated, the conditions in the existing school became progressively worse and both staff and student morale suffered. As a teacher myself I can assure the Minister that a bad environment is not conductive to the communication of knowledge. One needs a positive environment in which to meet this task.
Meetings were organised, protests were held, and the situation was highlighted among the local community and also in the national media. Local politicians and public representatives of various shades of political opinion gave their unqualified support to the demand for a new school so that there is clearly a positive political involvement on the part of all the local representatives from the area at a very early stage indeed in the proceedings.
In 1981 the pressure had reached such an extent that a new school was sanctioned by the then Minister for Education, Deputy Wilson. Shortly after this it was announced publicly that the site was to be at Seán McDermott Street and Waterford Street. The site was purchased by the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee and the building was to be completed by 1985. This is the end of 1989; in the early 1980s plans had advanced to such a point that the site was bought and the building was to be completed four years ago. Architects' plans were drawn up and early in 1982 tenders were sought for the building of the school and found by the responsible authorities to be satisfactory.
In 1982 a political situation emerged with which I am sure we are all familiar. There was a hung Dáil and there were negotiations between both Deputy FitzGerald and the present Taoiseach, Deputy Haughey. As a result of this the famous Gregory deal was struck when, for the first time, somebody representing the most deprived section of our inner city was actually placed in a pivotal role so that he was able to exact, by bargaining, from the incoming Taoiseach a series of undertakings that became known as the Gregory deal. Part of that argument, part of that deal, a part which I very much regret has never been honoured, was that this school would be completed. There was an undertaking given. The reason I am raising this today on the Adjournment is to seek to exert pressure so that that long-standing undertaking can now at last be brought to reality.
On 3 December 1987, as the Dáil Official Report will show, a question was asked by Deputy Gregory under the heading of Dublin Inner City Community College. He asked the Minister for Education when she intended to give approval for work to commence on the community college for Dublin's north inner city at Seán McDermott Street, Dublin 1; if her attention had been drawn to the commitment given to build this college and if she would make a statement in the matter. The Minister of State at the Department, Deputy Fahey, made the reply on behalf of the Minister and stated:
Because of the restriction on the relevant capital allocation which the Government have imposed under their Programme for National Recovery I cannot indicate when it will be possible for me to authorise commencement of construction in this matter despite the undertaking given of which I am aware. Work on the project which is estimated to cost £3 million will commence when sufficient resources become available to me to enable it to proceed.
Deputy Gregory pressed the matter by forcing the issue on to the level of social responsibility and his next supplementary question indicated very clearly that he felt as I do. Although I do not directly represent the inner city I live in the inner city which, as this House knows, is an area with quite astonishing levels of unemployment reaching into the upper seventies and eighties; 80 per cent of the adults in the area in which I live are unemployed. The one way out these people have from the ghetto is the possibility of a decent education and successive Governments have conspired to deprive them of this.
I would like to make a point at this stage that I think will emerge as we examine the evidence that what the Department of Education are involved in here is that most dangerous of exercises, reactive rather than creative planning; because as one reads through a series of questions and a series of replies from the Minister it is increasingly evident that the Department of Education have decided in their wisdom that there is, and is going to continue to be, a declining population of educable students in the north inner city.
It was no doubt for this reason that the Minister for Education facilitated the Loreto Nuns in their flight from the north inner city out to the prosperous suburbs of Swords. I remember questioning the head nun on that occasion when I met her on the street and I asked her why they were leaving, and she said, "Because there were no children in the area, Mr. Norris." I said that was a very interesting observation and asked her if this was Catholic social doctrine. I said to her I would like to know if there were no children in the area, what were those creatures I saw every day hanging out of the railings of the flats. I asked her if it was the present position of Catholic social teaching that children only occur above a certain socio-economic level and asked if she would care to give me a categorisation of these humanoids I saw hanging out of the railings of the flats. These are the very people for whom education is necessary, and I deplored, as I say, the flight in full pursuit of the middle classes.
It was facilitated by the Minister, and I think it particularly means that when that middle class institution is allowed to flee and to realise that valuable site as an asset and to be assisted in the creation of a new school with finances from the Department of Education, even the new inner city community college is apparently to be stripped away from the people in this area. The Minister of State said it had a very high priority. That can mean more or less anything you like depending on your scale of priorities, I suppose, but again he quoted budget restraints. Deputy Gregory asked if the Minister was aware that the Taoiseach gave a specific written commitment in 1982 that this college would be built and if he was now saying that because of financial constraints this written commitment would not be honoured. The answer was that this was 1987 and not 1982 which is not, I think, an over-startling assertion. We have a situation that architects' plans were drawn up, the schools were ready to go, but the Government were apparently hesitating. Deputy Gregory pressed further questions with Deputy Tomás Mac Giolla on 16 June, Bloomsday, 1988. Deputy Gregory asked if the Minister was concerned at conditions at St. Garvan's National School, Great Denmark Street, and if she would make a statement. Deputy Mac Giolla amplified this by saying that he wanted to know if it was intended to proceed in 1989 with the building of the inner city Vocational Education Committee community college on the Seán McDermott Street site which was deferred in 1988 because money was not provided for its construction in the 1988 estimates, if she would ensure that the moneys were provided in the 1989 Estimates, and if she would make a statement.
The statement that emerged was that she was aware of the conditions and I have to place on record that the Minister, Deputy O'Rourke, is somebody with experience in the teaching area and, I believe she is a caring and good Minister. That is why I am making a strong appeal to her in this matter. She said it was her intention to have St. Garvan's and the vocational school in Parnell Square replaced by the north inner city community college, Sean McDermott Street, but that it was not possible to indicate at that stage whether money would be available in the 1989 Estimates. On 8 November 1988 a further question was asked by Deputy Gregory when he inquired of the Minister "as to the plans she has for the provision of modern alternative accommodation for the staff and students of St. Garvan's Vocational School, Great Denmark Street, which is in a rundown condition". May I say that is putting it mildly. The answer was that it was proposed that alternative accommodation for St. Garvan's Vocational School would be provided by the north inner city community college to be built at Sean McDermott Street.
Now we begin to get the conditions. Construction of the proposed college is subject, in the first instance, to the availability of the necessary capital resources and to the agreement of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee to certain conditions laid down by her Department in this matter. There was a further question on 13 December where greater elucidation became possible with regard to what these conditions were and it is here that we get, for the first time, the explicit indication that the Minister feels that there is going to be a substantial and continuing decline in population numbers and that the building of the college without certain conditions attaching would create an unaceptable level of surplus accommodation in the area — a laughable statement I may say, that the north inner city is going to be burdened with an embaras de richesses. It beggars credibility. In these circumstances she has decided that the provision of the college will be conditional on the closure and sale of North Stand Vocational School. I would like to say that I consider this blatant idiocy. The North Strand Vocational School is purpose built. It was intended as a school. It has a thriving population, and yet apparently the Department of Education feel that it would be appropriate to close this successfully functioning school, purpose built, and make this a condition for removing children and young adults from conditions which are simply appalling and which in fact break the law.
I would like an answer if possible to the fact that the fire regulations, for example, and the Factories Act are clearly being breached in all the premises that I mentioned. I would like to know if it is the policy of this Government and its Ministers to connive with a situation where the law is being broken in situations which may place the lives of young people in jeopardy.
The final question to which I will refer was this year, 17 May 1989 when Deputy Gregory asked the Minister if agreement had been reached regarding the conditions set down by her Department to enable construction work to start on the proposed north inner city college. The Minister replied that the conditions in question have been the subject of correspondence and discussion with the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee; that the committee will be authorised to proceed to tender stage on the basis of the existing building plans when the necessary capital resources can be made available. May I say at this point that a hoarding announcing the new school was erected in 1982. It was left there unpainted and untended and it has now collapsed and that hoarding is as far as this wonderful school ever got. I consider that that is a reproach to the Department of Education and its officers. I would like to place on record some of the conditions existing in one of the schools, St. Garvan's. There is no gym, no assembly area, no yard; classrooms which were never designed as such are unsuitable and cannot be adapted to function as modern classrooms. Additional rooms have to be rented from the Institute of Adult Education, Mountjoy Square, and over the past 20 years additional rooms have been rented in three additional locations. Staff and student toilet facilities are grossly inadequate. There are no canteen facilities for either staff or students. The staff room is tiny; there is no storage space for books or equipment. Because of its age and structure, narrow winding stairs, four storey narrow building above basement——
