Coralstown is on the route from Kinnegad to Mullingar. I wish to make a case here on behalf of the parents, students and population surrounding the school in Coralstown. Inactivity seems to be the order of the day. Certainly we want an update by the Department on the present position.
The school in Coralstown was built many years ago. It is parallel to the busy N4 motorway where, on average, 890 vehicles pass every hour. Some 70% of these vehicles are driven at very high speeds and can be construed as a danger to children who are playing just three metres from the road. Over the past year or more, there have been a number of minor accidents and, indeed, some serious ones, the most recent of which damaged the school boundary wall.
The building is over 70 years old and is structurally unsound. The school lacks many luxuries taken for granted in other schools of its size. Children must leave the comfort of the classroom and the supervision of the teachers to use the toilets, which are wet and damp and have no running hot water. In wet weather they get very badly flooded.
The classrooms in the school are overcrowded and teachers find it increasingly difficult to fulfil the requirements of the new curriculum, which requires more interaction with the students and therefore more space. There is no medical room to administer the various health checks. The facilities for staff are primitive. There is no staff room or private area in which a teacher can have a discussion with a parent. There are no staff toilets and no facilities for the staff to have lunch. It is difficult to teach under such cramped conditions.
In 1998, the Department of Education and Science agreed to build a new three teacher school on a greenfield site in Coralstown. Since then, the required local contribution of £30,000 has been raised, the site for the school has been purchased by the parish and planning permission for the school has been granted since September last. In December last, members of the board of management of this school met officials of the Department of Education and Science and were bitterly disappointed with the revelations at that meeting. They were told the building of the school would not start for another three years and that it would take two years to complete, that is, that it would be five years in all before completion.
Coralstown is only four miles from Kinnegad and seven miles from Mullingar. This is a growth area of County Westmeath. It is the nearest area to the city of Dublin in the BMW region. A motorway from Kilcock to Kinnegad is to be constructed, starting in the early part of next year. A new company, Lagan Cement, has moved into the town of Kinnegad and it is starting a new business park. The area could be best described in this way, that Lagan Cement will be to Kinnegad what Seán Quinn is to west Cavan. The companies are in the same line of business and Lagan Cement is a successful company. This will be a major growth area from Kinnegad to Mullingar.
With that and the needs of the people of this area in mind, this school is long overdue to be built. I call on the Minister and the Department to set in train as a matter of urgency a process whereby this school will be given top priority on the Government's priority list. This certainly does not appear to be the case at present. I hope by raising the matter on the Adjournment Coralstown will be put at the top of the priority list. It should be prioritised for immediate address as a school urgently in need of capital funding.
