I want to avail myself of the opportunity provided by the discussion on these Supplementary Estimates to make a few comments on matters relating to education in my own constituency. County Dublin is expanding very rapidly but educational facilities are certainly not keeping pace with this development. Last August or September in at least two areas that I know of there were large numbers of children who had reached school-going age but who failed to gain entry into any school. The difficulty arising in these cases was only overcome at the eleventh hour by the use of prefabricated schools and by the wholehearted co-operation of site owners in making sites available in time at very short notice.
This kind of situation should not arise. There were hundreds of children involved and it should be possible to anticipate this additional need for school accommodation. It should not require emergency methods and the situation should not arise in which there were no schools to which to send the children, unless they were taken long distances. Children of tender years cannot travel long distances unless they are accompanied or driven by their parents. There should be much greater liaison between the Department, the local authority, the school managers, the vocational committees and the secondary school authorities. If this liaison existed and if there were proper co-operation, there would always be information available to inform these various authorities about coming needs, population trends and development trends.
There should be a section in the Minister's Department compiling this information so that it would be available to the people concerned with a view to securing suitable sites in sufficient time to ensure that there will be proper building and that the school authorities will be able to provide the necessary schools in anticipation of needs. The necessary schools should not have to be provided as a panic measure. In one area of which I am aware, we have now ten wooden prefabricated schools. Unfortunately these prefabricated schools have a habit of becoming permanent. From what I am told, they are all right as an emergency measure but are not regarded as suitable schools for long periods.
I am afraid there is a tendency on the part of the Department, when these schools are put into position, to say that they are not so bad, that there are areas which are worse off and that these prefabricated schools should be retained. That is not good enough. They should be used only in cases of complete emergency, as a means of expanding existing accommodation where there are indications that the population may ultimately drop. Where there is evidence that these are areas where the population will grow and where the demand is on the increase every day, we should ensure that when schools are built, they are adequate in size.
I know of a situation in County Dublin where a primary school was built which was far too small, despite the protests of the people concerned that it was too small. Every responsible representation was made to the Minister on the matter but all were turned down for no good reason. A year later we had to put a prefabricated room alongside to accommodate the children. That is false economy. We have the same experience in relation to vocational schools. In every area I know where these have been built in recent years, they have all been shown to be much too small in a very short time. This is a shortsighted policy.
This leads me to the consideration of the present position in relation to the provision of vocational schools in the country as a whole, although my concern is principally with County Dublin. A decision has been reached to suspend all building of vocational schools until the Minister has finished his survey in relation to post-primary schools throughout the country. That was a serious mistake on the part of the Minister. It is a good thing that the survey should be made. It should have been made years ago. The information which the Minister requires and which the survey is designed to give him should always have been in the Department and available to him in relation to the future development of our educational facilities. It is all wrong that the Minister should decide that all building should cease until he finds the answers to these questions.
The situation will now arise which areas now in urgent need of educational facilities will be denied them for a much longer period because of this decision to stop all building until the Minister has all the information he needs. In one area the Minister has refused permission to build at a stage when the lowest tender has been accepted. He said it might be that the school might not be big enough. The situation in this regard is always changing, and throughout this particular area, there is rapid development and population is pouring in. It was quite obvious that this school would only be big enough for a short time for either boys or girls but why did he not let us go ahead and finish it? If the money was not there, he could have said so.
In another area expansion has been going on for over 20 years and there is an enormous population. At the moment there is only one suitable site in the centre of this area. I approached the Minister's predecessor for permission for the compulsory purchase of this site and for some reason best known to himself, he refused that permission. That site has not passed from us yet but it is going to pass because we have not got the facilities and the Department has not agreed to a compulsory purchase order. We cannot get sites for the building of houses, not to talk of schools, without compulsory purchase orders. The Minister is mistaken if he thinks we are going to get the sites for vocational schools unless he uses the compulsory powers he has.
I am now referring to Walkinstown. This area has been built on for the past 15 or 20 years. There are no vocational education facilities in that area and there is a growing population in it. Before the Minister started his survey, we in the vocational education committee in County Dublin gave him the best survey we could provide. I think he had sufficient information to tell us what the future holds and to allow us to go on with the job of planning our school sites.
I hope the present Minister will change his mind in relation to the use of compulsory purchase powers and even at this eleventh hour, change his mind in relation to this site and tell the Dublin Vocational Committee to go ahead and procure this site by compulsory purchase. The position is that we have the site. The developer who had the site had got permission to build 14 houses on it and he gave it to us on terms acceptable to the Department but because of a covenant in the lease, we were not allowed to build a school on it; but if we get compulsory powers that will be put right. I think it is a great mistake to allow the site to go. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this situation because this site is passing away from us if it has not already gone. It is a very serious matter if it goes because of the lack of these powers or reluctance to use them. I have been all around that area; I know it intimately and I know that the prospects of getting a suitable site there are non-existent. I ask the Minister to reconsider that aspect of the matter.
I also want to refer to the grants for secondary schools. When these grants were introduced, we were all very pleased, even though they were limited grants and introduced with quite a lot of trumpet blowing. I only discovered recently that they are not grants at all, that where these grants are given, the per capita allowance is reduced over the years until the grants are recovered. If I am wrong in that, I should like the Minister to correct me but if that is the case—and I am assured it is—it is wrong to describe these as grants. They are only loans and that should be admitted straight away. There is very little encouragement given particularly to the religious orders who have done a wonderful job in this country over the years in providing educational facilities for our people at very little cost to the State. It is all wrong that so much time should have to be spent by these religious orders in the running of functions of all kinds before and after hours and often wasting valuable time that should be spent in doing educational work in trying to work out how they can collect the money necessary to build and maintain these schools.
I also wish to refer to the building of ordinary primary schools and the time taken to build them.
We have had very unfortunate experiences in County Dublin with the same contractor. In one case I think it took him the best part of four years to build a small primary school and it had to be finished by the Board of Works using direct labour. In the second case, in my own parish, it took between three and three and a half years to complete a small primary school. In another case a still smaller school at Kilternan is still unfinished after three or four years. There are still so many defects yet to be put right that it is really a disgrace. This all concerns the same contractor. In the middle of this, and in spite of it, this contractor is given a further contract to build a school in County Meath. That is having an absolute disregard for the efficiency and speed at which national schools should be provided. It is giving building contracts to a man or a firm obviously not equipped to do the job and who should not get this favour when he or they cannot be relied on to finish the schools.
There has been reference to the standards in small rural schools. It is deplorable at this stage in our history that the Department should still prescribe for small schools an open turf fire as the system for heating. How do we expect teachers to go to small rural schools if the standards there are so very much lower than the standards provided today for the larger urban-type schools. In the urban schools that are being built now, there are very fine facilities such as central heating that can be turned on by a switch and is fully automatic. When the children come in in the mornings, the school is warm and remains warm all day. There is less sickness and greater comfort. When you go into these other primitive schools, some of which have been unimproved for years and have been allowed to decay and deteriorate, you find that an effort is made in the mornings to light the ordinary solid fuel fire, with all the accompanying cleaning. The poor quality of the heating facilities means they have no heat until it is time for the children to go home.
It is no wonder that children are attracted elsewhere. No effort is made to make these schools comfortable or bring the standards up to date. It is no wonder it is difficult to get staff to stay in them. It would be easy enough to get staff to stay in rural schools if these were brought up to date and made comfortable. In many cases it would not take an immense outlay to make them comfortable and more liveable. It is often said that it is difficult to get teachers to stay in these schools and to accept the facilities that are there. That is no wonder. They must stay there all day with no living accommodation provided and none available in the area.
If we want a doctor to stay in a remote district, we build a doctor's residence and in that way we maintain that service. If we want to see whether or not these rural schools are a success or a failure, we should first modernise them and provide the necessary facilities even in a limited number of cases, just as they are provided in urban areas and larger schools and see what the effect would be. I have an example in mind in my own constituency. Not so many years ago there was a small rural school there with very primitive arrangements, to put it mildly. Some Deputies referred to toilet accommodation. There was no toilet accommodation of any description. This school has since been rebuilt. It is a two-teacher school.
When the primitive school existed, it was not possible to get people to accept a local authority house in the area. We had empty houses there with no tenants for them, even though houses in the area as a whole were scarce. Since the modern school was provided—it is still only a two-teacher school—we have a demand for services and at present money is being collected for a church in that area. That is indicative of the part the school plays in a rural area. It plays no small part in community development and community interest. Many of these areas could be developed into very happy and worthwhile communities if we had regard to these facts. The people will move away if the facilities are not there, but, if we make an effort to give them the facilities to which they are entitled, they will be attracted to these areas.
It was to be expected, I suppose, that in a discussion on education at the moment emphasis would be placed on the controversy which flared up recently in relation to the future of one- and two-teacher schools. There has been considerable argument and discussion. The controversy has flared up simply because bureaucracy has come up with a quick and, I suppose, what is regarded as more important still, a cheap solution to the problem, a solution which could, in fact, have very far-reaching consequences and widespread effects on the lives of rural communities. I am afraid the decision was taken too lightly and the reaction which has occurred as a result of the decision is obvious to everybody.
The publication Investment in Education makes recommendations based almost entirely on economics. Figures have been produced to show the savings that can be effected in the building of schools. Figures have also been used to indicate the more economical use that can be made of teaching and other facilities. Statistics have been produced to show that the small schools have been not nearly so successful as the larger schools when measured by the number of scholarships secured, etc. In my view, these are all material measures and I do not think the problem can be fairly measured in that way. There are other extremely important aspects of education which must not be lost sight of. It is still true, I think, that the most important aspect of education is teaching children how to save their souls. There is no evidence to show that by bringing children together in bigger numbers education towards that end will be any more efficacious.
The problem has been very sensibly dealt with by Deputy Jones. He urges caution. He urges the greatest possible amount of discussion and agreement with the parents before any move is made. I am sure that, if the Minister has not felt that way already, he must now be impressed by the fact that there is such pressure for the agreement of the parents before any sudden change is made. When a man of the character and experience of Deputy Jones, a teacher and a parent, speaks as he spoke, then the Minister should listen carefully. Deputy Jones feels very strongly about this matter and about the implications in the solution suggested to him. This is obviously, as he said, a matter for pilot experimentation. He recognises, and rightly so, that there should be no move until the fullest possible agreement is secured from the parents.
That covers the few comments I want to make at this stage. Before I sit down, I should like to ask the Minister again to reconsider the decision made by his predecessor not to allow compulsory purchase powers for the securing of sites in County Dublin and convey to the committee his agreement now that this power should be sought and used.
