I welcome the Minister to the House. I have raised on a number of occasions the question of the Central Model School in Marlborough Street which is in the grounds of the Department of Education. I have raised it on five occasions since I came into the Seanad; in November 1989, May 1990, November 1991, June 1992, and October 1992 and on all occasions I have been given encouraging news that the school is about to be renovated, that contracts are about to go out and that approvals are about to be given. The previous Minister for Education, Deputy O'Rourke, said in May 1990 and I quote:
I am pleased to tell you that I have decided that the building project for the Model School, Marlborough Street, shall now proceed.
The Minister who succeeded her, Deputy Davern, attended the Christmas party there in 1991 and acknowledged the need to provide better accommodation. In a newspaper report Deputy Davern is quoted as saying they were going ahead in the New Year with the building of a new model school in order to give pupils a better chance. The present Minister for Finance said recently that the contract would be awarded on 1 October and that work would commence on the school immediately. The latest information is that tenders are to be in by 2 November and a contract awarded on 9 November. That sounds like a very specific deadline but these are the same types of deadlines we have had over the past three years. It is not good enough to receive promises which are constantly broken by successive Ministers for Education.
The background of the school is that it is one of the old model schools established by the Primary Board in 1837 and it was severely damaged by fire in 1981. Since then the pupils have had to work and play in the grounds of the Department of Education in old prefabricated buildings that were already some nine or ten years old when taken over by the Department and turned into temporary school prefabs. Now they are approximately 20 years old and quite unsuitable for their purpose. The roof is leaking, floors are rotten in places, toilets are in an atrocious condition and the buildings are generally deplorable. Children have been educated in these conditions since 1981, which is almost 12 years ago. There have been nothing but promises about improving the situation.
This year the Departments of Finance and Education agreed that £1.2 million would be made available for the reconstruction of the school. Now we are coming to the end of the year and no work has commenced. The danger is that if the money allocated for 1992 is not used, then we may have to start from scratch again, looking for further funding in the Estimates and budget of 1993. There is major concern that the matter is being put again on the long finger and that nothing will be done.
The conditions in which the children and staff are working are contrary to the provisions of the health and safety legislation and would be condemned if those regulations were adhered to. Before something of that nature happens and the Minister for Education is embarrassed in his own backyard about a school that should be a showpiece for education, I ask him to ensure that the reconstruction of the Central Model School in the grounds of the Department of Education is started before the end of this year.