I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Allen, for coming in this afternoon. We appreciate the Minister's interest in this matter.
The national school in Kilkee has been the cause of long and drawn out discussions over a number of years. In 1993 a decision was made to fund the building of a new national school. The intention was to amalgamate with the existing school and put a new extension onto it. While a number of meetings took place between the school's board of management, the staff, the design team and the Department of Education, indications were given a while ago that everything was ready to proceed with the building as it had been designed. Planning permission was sought for the development and it was granted in November 1995. At that stage everything seemed to be all systems go for the new construction. Suddenly the Department intervened to make changes to the design. The suggestion was made that some of the proposed rooms which were being added on were too large and needed to be re-examined. The students have been attending an old school which is partly run down and neglected. The facilities are not adequate for these children. The situation is deplorable.
We need to get an indication from the Minister of State that the funding is available to enable the building of the school to commence and that whatever design problems they have can be ironed out. I understand that officials from the Department have been in touch with the design team. The general feeling up to quite recently was that everything was ready to proceed. Unfortunately, an indication was given recently that the project may not be able to proceed because of a scarcity of funds. The Minister of State can deny that, but this has been the feeling locally. It has taken its place in the queue with other projects and the same urgency is not attached to providing the extension as was there a while ago. The board of management is involved in fund raising activities and it needs to get a clear indication from the Department as to what the plans are, when the building is likely to commence and what changes, if any, will be made to the original design.
This is a serious matter for the children involved and for the parents, board of management and teachers. They are keenly aware of the necessity to get this building under way and, hopefully, to see construction starting this year. We need to clarify the present status of the application and how soon they can expect work to commence there.
